Rise of the Ungrateful
by kayangelus
Summary: When Harry is five years old, he is taken from an abusive home to be raised by Hungary's compaione, Sasha Voban. Six years later when school starts, Albus doesn't receive a shy easily manipulated boy, but a human weapon with plans of his own. The boy might save the wizards for the Dark Lord Voldemort, but not int he way they expect.
1. Prologue

_This is a cross-over between Harry Potter and Campione. When Harry is five years old, he is taken from an abusive home to be raised by Hungary's compaione, Sasha Voban. When he returns six years later to study at Hogwarts, instead of a shy body doubting his self-worth, he is now a trained combatant with plenty of confidence and willingness to take control. As well as a deep seated desire to always win, even if he has to drag honor through the mud to do it._

_So far I'm not certain if I will actually have Harry become a Campione. Mainly because it would stop Voldemort from being a credible enemy (since Harry would literally become god-level). If it does happen, it won't be until he is 14 at the earliest. Input on whether he should become a campione or not would be appreciated._

_Since as far as I know the campione novels don't specify a year when they take place, I'm setting it so that Godou killed Verethragna in 2004. This puts Harry at the same age as Salvatore Doni, so far the only campione are Voban, Luo Hao, and Madam Aisha. The Black Prince won't become a campione until 1992, when Harry is in his second year._

_Also, Wizengamot is the British Ministry of Magic's High Court/Law Passing Body/House of Lords. Witenagemot is a Europe-wide magic organization centered in London, England whose purpose is to keep Campione in check. Not that they are very good at that. Mentioning this here, because the names are really similar._

_DISCLAIMER: I do not own Campione, Harry Potter, or any of the characters there-in._

* * *

**Prologue**

_July 31, 1985_

The freak opened his eyes as he sat up in its uncle's cupboard. Its uncle's blanket fell off of it as it slowly opened the closet door, careful not to disturb its uncle's family's rest. It saw that it was almost six o'clock, time for it to start making breakfast.

The freak did not have a name as far as it knew. Names were for humans, and it wasn't a human as its uncle's family told him. It also didn't own anything. It was generously being lent his uncle's cupboard and blanket for it to sleep there, and its cousin's old clothes to wear.

In exchange for the untold kindness of being supplied with those as well as food and water out of its uncle's hard earned money, its job was to make breakfast, lunch, and dinner, clean the house, and otherwise remain unseen. If it was good and obedient, it would even be rewarded by not being beaten by its uncle.

The freak became five years old today. It looked like a skinny four year old, male human. However, as it had been told countless times, it wasn't human. It was a freak. Freak was both its name, and what it was. It had black hair, falling down to near eye-level, emerald green eyes that stared blankly ahead, and pale white skin that would have been considered unhealthy on a human. It assumed that to be normal for a freak.

The freak was well fed, its aunt and uncle assured it, though it looked like a starving human. Bones could be seen clearly against the skin, but that was normal on a freak. It was the freak's fault that it looked like such an unhealthy human being even when it was treated so well.

It made its way to the kitchen, stumbling slightly as it went. Its legs hurt, but it ignored the pain. Mentioning the pain was complaining, and complaining was bad. If it didn't act good, it wouldn't be rewarded by not being punished. It wanted to be rewarded.

Upon entering the kitchen, it quickly made breakfast, working without a word. Today there would be a guest, a lovely and gracious woman named Aunt Marge, its uncle's sister. Because she was coming, it was to stay out of the way, so it didn't have to clean today. And so, after making breakfast for four – its Uncle Vernon, its aunt Petunia, its cousin Dudley, and its other aunt Marge – it grabbed a slice of bed, and returned to its uncle's cupboard.

It would then lie in the cupboard, eating the bread, and be a good freak. It would be quiet and not disturb its gracious and giving family, until it was noon and time to make lunch.

* * *

It was around five hours later when the cupboard was opened. It looked up to see its cousin, a healthy and upstanding gentleman and a fine example of what a boy should be. Its cousin was five years old, the same age as it, but significantly bigger. This could be seen from its cousin's clothing it had been graciously lent. Although the clothes were all at least a year old, they were still much too big, hanging loosely off of it with plenty of slack.

Its cousin made a smile that made it shudder. It recognized the smile as the smile usually given before it was punished by its cousin. It didn't understand how, but it had been a bad freak today. With a loud grunt, its cousin grabbed it, and yanked it out of the closed. It stumbled into a wall, but righted itself immediately.

Looking around it noticed that its aunt Petunia, a somewhat skinny lady of extreme beauty – so he was told – sitting in the kitchen sipping coffee, while its uncle, a large and powerful man dressed in a suit in what it understood to be a very professional manner sat net to her. Standing by the table was its aunt Marge, a woman of size comparable to its uncle.

Next to aunt Marge was a dog, specifically something it understood to be a bulldog, one of its aunt's favorites at that.

"Freak!" Its uncalled yelled. "My sister's dog needs exercise. Go make yourself useful and play with it outside."

Freak cringed. It did not enjoy playing with its aunt's dogs. The last time it had been made to "play" with one of them, it had returned to the house bleeding and crying, and had been punished for being loud, and covering the house in blood. It had taken it two whole days to clean up the house.

"Yeah freak! Go play!"

Its cousin said, roughly dragging it to the door before pushing it outside. A few seconds later, the dog followed, jumping to take a bite out of it. The freak wasn't sure how, but it managed to stumble out of the way of the dog's jump. The courtyard door was open.

It wasn't allowed to leave the garden. However, by the time it remembered this, it was already outside, running down the road, away from the dog. It could hear its family yelling for a moment, and about to follow. Suddenly the sun was blotted out, there was a strong wind, and rain started to fall. The dog followed, but the family didn't.

The freak stumbled along the road, glad to see a lack of people. It was a bad freak, but hopefully it wasn't being too bad today. It didn't want to go hungry as well. It dodged the dog three more times, never striking back. It knew striking back was futile, and that it wasn't allowed to strike back. If it did, it would no longer be playing.

It knew eventually it would be bitten. It knew it should accept this, but it couldn't. The pain was inevitable, but it wanted to delay it. As it stumbled along, it once again jumped out of the way of an attack, and stumbled to the ground, losing its balance. On the ground next to it, was a large knife. It knew it wasn't allowed to touch the knife, knew it would be punished even more for it. It also knew the dog was coming around again.

A moment later, the dog lunged at it. The freak grabbed the knife, and rolled out of the way, cutting itself on the ground in the process. It immediately regretted breaking the rules. It knew it should stop, but couldn't. _I don't want to die._ The thought rang through its head, even though it knew it didn't have the right to think of itself as "I".

The dog lunged again, and it grabbed a stick off the ground with its empty hand, and shoved it into the dog's mouth. _I want to live!_ The dog growled, and then whimpered as the knife was shoved into his eyes, and through there, into its brain.

The freak let go of both the knife and the stick as the dog's body crumpled, and stumbled backwards in horror. It shouldn't have done that. It was a very bad freak.

"What is your name boy?"

The freak turned around, and saw a man standing in the rain. The man had a suit like its uncle, but did not have a massive frame like its uncle. The man was taller than its uncle, and moved with confidence, not hindered by his own body.

"Me, Freak." The freak said, pointing at itself, introducing itself the way it had been taught to. It was in a lot of trouble it realized. It had been seen by a stranger.

The stranger smiled. It was a horrible smile, it made the freak think of a beast looking at a pray. The freak slowly got up, and stood still as the man grabbed its shoulder. Now the beating would come for being a bad freak.

"I am Sasha Dejanstahl Voban. For a moment there, you had good eyes. The eyes of a wolf. You are only a wolf cub, but perhaps when you are older you will become a true wolf."

The freak didn't understand what this gentleman was saying.

"Freak isn't a good name. From today on, you can be Balor Voban, the name of a human, a wolf."

The frea- Balor nodded. He didn't know how, but he had become a human. He was no longer a freak. Perhaps now his family would treat him well?

"Well Balor, from today on I will be raising you. I frankly don't care about your family's opinion."

With that, a tornado struck down on the ground where the two of them were standing. A moment later the tornado was gone, and so were the two figures. A few seconds later, the sky was cleared, and when people went outside to take a look, they would find the body of a bulldog stabbed to death, and blood marks on the ground, along with pieces of torn clothing. However, the two humans who had been in the rain were gone.

* * *

_July 31, 1986_

The Freak, as he was known until a year ago, had actually been given a name by his parents before they died. That name was Harry Potter. Not that he ever knew this name.

It wasn't by accident that Harry was put with his abusive relatives who hated him because of how much better he was. When Harry was only a year old, his mother had sacrificed her life to protect him from a Dark Lord. This sacrifice had created a ward on him that would protect him from evil.

However, the ward had conditions. Namely, Harry hard to live with his mother's relatives. It only worked so long as he considered that despicable hell-hole home. Furthermore, he had to return to "home" at least once a year to renew the ward. The ward would only last for up to a year after Harry had left the place. If it was not renewed, it would permanently disappear. If it kept being renewed though, it would last until Harry turned 17.

Today it was precisely a year since Harry had left his so-called home, and never looked back. Today, at precisely 11:12am, the wards around Harry's house, as well as on him, disappeared.

Somewhere in Scotland, an old man was eating some candy called lemon drops. This man was _very_ old, having reached the age of a hundred and five just recently. He had a beard that was perhaps even more impressive than his age, starting from just around his ears, and reaching all the way down to his belly. In fact, it was hard to tell when his hair ended, and his beard began. His body showed his age, but he still moved remarkably well for it, being able to move around without any assistance. His eyes seemed to twinkle every so often in a manner that had become his trademark signature.

He wore a long gray robe, that probably went out of style a few centuries before even he was born in the civilized world. So of course, it was the latest fashion in the wizarding world. He was sitting on a large chair in an office that could only be described as magical. It was full of pictures of old people, and the pictures were constantly moving and talking to one another. There were a variety of magical gadgets in his office that were moving around or measuring something or another.

It was one such gadget that would end his lemon drop eating session. This gadget was responsible for keeping track of the wards protecting Harry Potter. They checked to make sure that the wards were active, and, well, that is it. There really wasn't a device in here to ensure that some random person didn't walk up to Harry and shoot him in the face. Or an accidental spell didn't cut the boy in half. Just a single device ensuring that the wards protecting Harry from a certain dead Dark Lord and his non-active followers were active. After all, if a now-dead Dark Lord is not harming you, clearly you are perfectly safe.

It was this device that suddenly let out a few beeps, and then stopped working. The wizard, Albus Dumbledore, suddenly leapt out of his chair in a manner that would have broken the backs of most his age. He was at the device in an instant, and checking to find that the wards on young Harry were gone. Harry Potter was either dead, or the wards had been broken.

Dumbledore pulled out a stick from his cloak, and twirled it in the air, creating a silver bird. "The wards over young Harry are down". With that, he disappeared from where he was standing, a loud 'pop' sound filling the room. The newly created silver bird also flew off to deliver the message.

* * *

Little Whinging, Surrey was a peaceful town in England. Pivet drive was a rich area of Little Winging where nothing exciting ever happened. The most exciting even was probably when exactly a year ago, someone killed a dog. But things like a young, five year old boy being kidnapped, or anyone being abused here never happened.

It was a regular after noon here at Little Whinging, when suddenly popping sounds could be heard all over Pivet drive. First, Albus Dumbledore appeared out of thin air, followed by half a dozen witches and wizards in similarly stupid looking robes. Some were wearing pointy-hats in case the "witch and wizard" imagery wasn't clear enough.

All of them stormed up to Number 4, Pivet Drive, little stick, around a foot long held in their hands. Dumbledore swung his stick, causing the door to open, and he entered, having never slowed down. The others followed, looking around as if expecting to be attacked at any moment.

"Where is Harry Potter!"

They demanded of the residents as they stormed in, Albus and one other sitting down to talk to them while the other five scanned the house for hostiles, and the six year old boy they were looking for. They used everything from spells, to questioning, to mind reading, to good old fashioned searching every corner to try and locate the boy.

It wasn't until an hour later that they confirmed for certain that the boy had run away precisely one year ago. When they did, all of them immediately left, disappearing into the air with a popping sound to search for the boy who, although he was brought up being taught that he was utterly worthless, was in fact one of the most important people in the wizarding community.


	2. Chapter 1: Pre-School

**Chapter 1: Pre-School**

_1989 August 17_

Balor was sitting atop a large wall, inscribing runes into a blade. The boy was 9 years old – magic had been used to confirm his birthday, though his birth name was as of yet unknown, mostly because absolutely no one was interested enough to run another test to figure it out, not even Balor himself – and had been adopted for little over 4 years now.

He was tall for his age, and well muscled. Unlikely 5 years ago he no longer walked around with broken bones all over his body. He carried a few scratches on him from training, as well as his previous abusive life, but those were only from the more serious injuries. Magic was rather good at healing injuries.

His only notable scare was a lightning bolt shaped one on his forehead. He had that from before when he was adopted, and had no idea how he got it. Had he lived in the supposedly-civilized Magical Britain, he would have known the meaning of that scar. He didn't live there though, and so the scar was another mystery he just didn't really give enough damns to figure out. Between tasks from his father, training, and research, he was already busy with actually important stuff.

His hair was kept well trimmed, sitting at only 2cm or so in length. Enough to keep his head warm, short enough to absolutely never get in the way. He still had the emerald green eyes from 4 years ago, however the eyes no longer appeared dead. Now they danced with life, and a new intensity, as if they wanted to devour whatever they looked at.

Supposedly his eyes had been faulty, and he had needed glasses to see better, mostly from the beatings he had taken. He wasn't sure. What he knew was that after he had been adopted, magical doctors had tended to him for over a month, and at the end of his, he could see perfectly, his entire body didn't hurt, he had some muscle mass, and had started looking like a regular 5 year old, instead of an anorexic 4 year old. Today, he looked like a fit 11 year old, rather than the 9 year old that he was.

During the past 4 years, Balor had trained intensely. His father never personally trained him in combat. It wasn't necessary. After all, one of his father's authorities was the ability to bring back anyone he had killed as an undead servant. Given that his father was nearly 300 years old, had made enemies of a lot of great warriors – and then slaughtered them – and had spent a decade early on in his life hunting down entire squadrons of mage knights terrorizing the land by using guns with magic, this was a _lot_ of people he could bring back.

Whatever it was that Balor wanted to learn, he was also insured access to the best and the brightest to learn from. Of course, these undead servants lacked motivation. They didn't divulge information willingly, but only answered his questions directly. This put the pressure on Balor to dictate his own education, find his own strengths, and push through on those. All his father ever did, was keep throwing challenges at Balor, forcing him to struggle as hard as he could to better himself.

Also Balor had many mage knights he could learn from, he was rather bad at martial combat. He excelled at mobility based magic, but his hand-to-hand combat, or weapon based combat was rather poor. Still better than an untrained amateur without experience, but that wasn't saying much.

He had a lot more success at magic. He knew of two types of magic: the combat magic that mage knights used, as well as wand magic.

Most of combat magic relied around raising one's physical capabilities, or the offensive powers of their weapons. However, there were some spells dedicated to the manipulation of the environment. Balor was a prodigy at any kind of magic that improved his mobility, but other kinds of stat boosting spells, or raising the offensive powers of this weapons didn't work too well for him. He was also pretty decent at environmental manipulation.

Balor definitely wasn't a prodigy at wand magic. However, he had a talent for it, and he trained hard at it. Considering most witches and wizards apparently started learning the style when they were 11, and he had been training with a wand for 3 years now, he was rather excellent for his age. However, this was more of a side-trick to throw into his main combat style. He could easily tell that he only had a temporary lead that others would make up, not a permanent one.

Balor's true forte, was the creation of wards and magic items, and imbuing weapons with permanent magical properties. This was a style that was rather time-consuming, and so could not be used mid-combat. However, he was able to spend time out of combat creation magical items, so that when it came to a fight he could use them in combat. That, or he could sell these and make money.

His father was more than capable of supplying him with money. Hell, Balor could have lived life as a pampered prince until the moment he died of old age if his father had felt like it. The problem was, his father wasn't like that. He pushed Balor to excel at what he was good at, to become a master of combat even if it meant having to march straight off of the beaten path, and stumble through a forest, blind, to find his own path. No hardships were spared so long as it helped nurture Balor's capabilities.

In essence, Balor had spent the past 4 years training to be a human weapon. As far as he could remember, these were the happiest years of his life. He realized that wasn't saying much, but he was still happy. It was hard, but success felt rewarding.

Today, he was looking forward to another success. He was currently enchanting a saber with some basic magical properties, that would than be given to some magical knight. It wasn't Great Knight-worthy yet, but it was still pretty damn good. However, his enchanting was just a way to pass time.

Balor was waiting until the sun came down. Today was a full moon, and in the courtyard were 4 werewolves. Normally sitting on a 3 meter high wall in a courtyard with 4 werewolves, when you were the only human around, on a full moon was a bad idea. This wasn't a normal event. Balor was running a test, a test that he couldn't believe no one else had done before.

It was known that the full moon made werewolves transform. However, there was precious little literature on why this happened. Balor had been able to limit it to three possibilities: the sight of a full moon, the magical energies given off by the full moon, and the full moon altering the magical energies in the environment. Today he was going to test which was the correct one.

Although wand magic dealt precious little with the magical energies of astral objects – in fact, most wand witches and wizards completely forgot about it after learning about it in school – it was different for the battle magic of mage knights. Most of _their_ magic revolves around manipulating various holy and spiritual energies. There were _very_ extensive written works on the properties and manipulation of the magical energies of the moon.

Balor had set up three areas for testing. One was a steel room where no light could enter, including no moonlight. One was this courtyard, with a ward set up to absorb the magical energies of the moon. Finally, there was another courtyard a short distance away, where the magical energies from the moon were permitted in, but the alterations they made were forcefully reversed by a ward. Each area had one observer, and 4 werewolves, all volunteers. Balor had chosen this courtyard, because he was certain this experiment would give the desired results.

* * *

A few hours later, it was finally night time, and the full moon was rising. He could hear a few werewolf howls a short distance away. But the 4 in this courtyard still weren't transforming. They were playing chess, and drinking beer.

_Excellent._

Balor displayed a vicious smile. This smile was something he had gotten from his father, somehow. He had only seen his father display a smile like this twice – once when fighting the exalted Luo Hao, and once when fighting a god – both times when pushed to his limits. It was the smile of a beast that was cornered, and aroused from the joys of danger, and flirting with death.

Balor wasn't sure why he smiled like that.

It was true that this ward wasn't terribly useful to werewolves. It was cheaper and superior to wolf's bane potion, but it still wasn't good enough to let them lead normal lives. However, it showed him where to go.

Getting off his ass, he activated leap magic, channeling magic to his feat. He leapt the distance of 20 or so meters necessary to reach the next wall in one bound. Leap magic didn't allow for flight, but it did allow for jumping pretty long distances. Masters of it could even keep up with cars on the highway by leaping from object to object.

As Balor looked down upon this courtyard, he saw an interesting sight. All the werewolves in here were going through a cycle of partially transforming, then de-transforming, then re-partially-transforming, etc. It looked painful, but there was nothing he could do. They had volunteered, knowing of this possibility. If this kept up, they would be out of it for the next 2 or 3 days, but the confirmation would be invaluable.

He already had an idea for how to make an object that solved the problem of lycanthropy. This experiment was merely to confirm the theory the item was based upon.

"I'm sorry." He said to them. "I promise I will free you of your curse. So please bear with this."

As he said that, he leapt back to return to the courtyard he was supposed to be observing.

* * *

_1990 January 11_

It was the fifth full moon since he had run the experiment with the wards. He had made the items that would solve the Lycanthropy issue. At least in theory.

The item was relatively simple. All it was is a leather wrist-band, with a circular sphere attached to it. The outside of the sphere was made of silver, so as to store the absorbed moonlight. A few needles would prick the wearer, and through it the lunar energy would be drained from the wearer. The sphere altered the energy into healing magic, and released it into the wearer through a different set of needles.

On a regular human, this would be a fancy-looking, inconvenient wrist-band that healed them on full-moons, and full-moons only. On a werewolf, it registered the bodily alterations as physical harm, and tried to heal those. Balor had attempted to use the disposition of witches – the mage knight style witches, not wand-wielding witches – as the baseline to heal them back to.

Witches were not simply females who could use magic. Witches were descendents of Divine Ancestors – fallen gods that had lost most of their power – who retained some of the powers of their ancestors. They had access to magic and abilities that could not be normally replicated. While the exact abilities differed from witch to witch, a few of the abilities were universal. Such as the ability to fly, or extended life-span depending on their magical levels.

Essentially what the wrist-bands did on full-moons, was attempt to alter the were-wolves into demi-witches. On the first full-moon they hard worn the bands they had constantly transformed back and forth, though less severely each time. On the second full-moon the transformations were minute – a wolf ear, wolf eyes, and some claws – though the pain was still there. On the third full-moon they experienced some pain, but no transformations, and no pain at the end of it.

This would be the fourth full-moon since they had started testing the wrist-bands. Some of the were-wolves that had gone through three cycles would not be wearing wrist-bands today. If they didn't transform, if they remained normal, lycanthropy was cured. If they did transform, well another group was wearing the bands for the fourth full-moon in a row.

Balor was agitated as he waited, and watched the sun sink below the horizon. The brandy for celebration was out and ready in case of a success. In fact, preparations had been made to contact the majority of the werewolf clans throughout Europe as soon as it was dawn tomorrow if today was a success.

If he succeeded, Balor's name would go down in history. At the age of 9, he would have already made one of the greatest contributions to magical society in this generation. Not for his brilliance, but because of how little everyone else cared. Of how little literature there was on the material. He had access to the magical knowledge of two completely different magical cultures. That was his only advantage, the only advantage he needed.

If he failed though... Balor didn't know if he could live with himself. Live with the disappointment he would cause everyone. The hopes he would crush and shatter under his naivete.

And so, he waited, and he prayed. He prayed that today was a success, that he could start ending the suffering of all these innocents.

* * *

_1990 July 12_

Balor Voban, and his friend Salvatore Doni, two 9 year old boys, looked up at a monster straight out of legends.

Both boys were considered both geniuses, and idiots. Balor was a genius artificer, but an idiot at martial arts. Salvatore was a genius of martial arts – already his skills with a sword were better than some of the Great Knights – but a complete idiot at nearly everything else. He couldn't use any kind of magic at all, and didn't have the slightest knowledge about magic.

At their own specialties both boys were so good that they could already qualify for the title of Great Knight. The second highest rank, only topped by the Paladino, a title held by precisely one person in all of Europe. And yet their other skills were so abysmal that they would never become mage knights. Not even of the lowest rank.

While Balor had the hope of being recognized as a Sage, a master of magic, there was no hope for Salvatore. The genius, a boy of talent seen only once a century, would never be recognized by any serious magical organization no matter what his accomplishments may be. Balor too would never be recognized as a fighter. He could defeat Great Knights in battle, and he would never be accepted as a combatant.

It was these two hopeless idiots that looked up at a 6 meter long scorpion. It was a Divine Beast, a magical creature of such power that gods often kept them as pets and used them in combat. A being of such power that a team of Great Knights using the correct tactics could not guarantee victory.

One might ask, why were these two idiots fighting a Divine Beast. It would in fact be a very reasonable question. The answer, surprisingly enough wasn't that they had attacked the creature to prove themselves. Nor were they ambushed by a building-sized monster. After all, they were in a _very_ empty desert, it was hard to miss a cactus, let alone this being. No, they were facing a Divine Beast, because Balor's father, Sasha, had thought it would be amusing to pit the two boys against such a creature.

_Sometimes, I really hate my dad._

Doni didn't seem to share his annoyance. That boy seemed very eager to get right to the fight-to-the-death. That was the thing with Doni. He didn't care what people thought of him. He was too busy enjoying fights, and defeating opponents far beyond his level to care about such petty things.

_Well, might as well get started._

The scorpion stuck out with its tail at the boys at a speed that an ordinary person would barely have time to react to. After the training that they had gone through, the boys found the speed to be rather slow.

Balor used leap magic to dodge to the right by about five meters, materialized his wand in his left hand, and fired off two stunning spells, as well as a body-binding spell with a yell of "stupefy, stupefy, petrificus totalus!" Two balls of red light, and a ball of gray light shot out of his wand, striking the creature, and doing absolutely nothing.

Divine Beasts had a very high level of magical resistance. It wasn't like most magical creatures where the spell simply did a lot less. Rather, spells that were too weak did absolutely nothing what so ever.

Doni in the meantime side-stepped the attack, and used a two-handed sword that was rather large for someone his side, to deflect the attack to the right. He covered the rest of the distance to the scorpion in a moment, and stuck one of its legs with his sword before rolling off to the left, away from the creature's attempts to stump on him.

That attack also did nothing, as the Divine Beast seemed to have skin of hardness comparable to some softer metals. So neither of their attacks were able to harm the creature. Naturally, both of them grinned like complete idiots. After all, even though it was technically a Divine Beast, it was _very_ low on the ranking of those. Mostly due to mobility issues.

With a quick wave of his wand and a short chant, Balor transformed some of the sand into a pair of lions that charged the scorpion. The scorpion immediately attacked the two lions, attempting to tear them apart.

Of course, neither lion was a match for a real lion, let alone a Divine Beast. They didn't even completely look like lions. They were just a simple transformation that created a creature with vaguely the right shape, and a lion's agility. The scorpion tore them apart in 10 seconds flat, but that was 10 seconds that Balor had to lay down his real spell.

He placed his hand on the ground and concentrated, channeling magic under the scorpion. He used basic alchemy to slightly modify the composition of the sand. The scorpion was already sinking nearly an entire foot into the sand with its claws, so he just had to let it sink further.

As the two lions were torn apart, the sand under the scorpion turned into quicksand. Suddenly, it started sinking into the ground at a rather slow pace. It raised its front feet, rather to climb out, when Doni decided to remind it that he was still here.

The boy charged in, dodged a stab from the scorpion's tail, and leapt along the scorpion's legs onto its back, swinging at the muscles in one of its front legs. The tendons in the leg were cut, causing the scorpion to stumble when it couldn't put both feet down. As such, it didn't move forward, and sank further into the quicksand.

Now, amongst swordsman, there was a theory that it was possible to reach such perfection with swordsmanship that your weapon didn't matter. You could pick up a random branch off the ground, and slice with it with the speed, precision, and sharpness of a rapier, or wield it with the force and bluntness of a greatsword. That you could pick up a kitchen knife, and use it as the greatest sword in existence.

Doni had not reached this level of perfection. However, in his idiotic drive to constantly push himself, he had reached the point where a sword in his hands did more than it should be able to. Of course, the fact that he was wielding a sword that Balor had personally spent two weeks enchanting the ever loving crap out of did help.

Even so, it only gave the scorpion a scratch. The muscles in that leg worked, the creature just needed to adjust how it moved them. Not that Balor was planning to let it.

He materialized a paintball gun he had brought along for the mission in his free hand. In wand magic, this would have been an extremely high level spell. So he used the mage knight variant of it; similar effects, different and easier mechanics. He then introduced the scorpion to the concept of fully-automatic paintball gun to the face.

The gun of course didn't do any damage. However, it turns out that having one's face covered in paint does not mesh well with attempts to see targets. Especially when very smelly paint that chemically reacts with air to produce enough heat to blind heat senses is used.

"And they laughed at me when I said I was going to fight a Divine Beast with a foot-long stick and a paintball gun."

The creature opened its mouth to let out a screech. Normally this would have been a terrifying experience. Unless you are a campione, you do NOT want a Divine Beast screeching or screaming at you. That means they have officially determined you as a threat. Of course, given that this was the idiot duo, they were specifically hoping for this to happen.

Doni shoved his sword into the creature's mouth, trying to cut some of the muscles, while stopping it from closing its mouth. Due to the magical enhancements on the sword, the muscles around the area would be weakened while the sword was in there, even if it didn't touch those specific muscles. Balor in the meantime unleashed a barrage of stunning spells into the creature's mouth, yelling "stupify" over and over like a broken record. His wand lit up like an imperial storm trooper's blaster on auto-fire, except he actually had decent aim. Given how the scorpion couldn't see the attack, it didn't know to try dodging until it started getting hit in the mouth with stunners.

Yes, it was true that Divine Beasts had very high magical resistance. However, they didn't hold a candle to Gods, Campione, and Heretical Gods. And being raised by a Campione, Balor knew that even those beings would be fully affected by a spell if it was released internally into them. Meaning, shoved into their mouth. He was banking on the same thing happening with Divine Beasts. Because if not, he had just exhausted himself for no good reason.

The scorpion did seem to be faltering under the barrage of spells. It was sinking into quicksand, and its body was stiffening up. With one final screech though, it released all of its magic, canceling the stunning effect on itself and stuck with its tail at the one target who's location it knew; Doni.

Doni did the reasonable thing of abandoning his sword, and jumping the hell off of the creature. He got out of the way of the tail just in time for the scorpion to stab itself in the back of the neck, killing itself. Sadly, in this final effort it got enough strength in its jaws to also snap the sword in half, making Balor let out a string of – sadly non-magical – curses.

Doni landed on the sand with barely a sound as he rolled, reducing the force of impact to negligible, and stood up. Balor banished his two weapons, and the two of them looked at the creature that they had slain. And the sword it hat cost them.

"You are now going to demand that I make you a new sword, aren't you?"

"Yup." Doni said with a bright smile, and clapped Balor on the back. Balor simply fell to the ground from the force of it.

"Could you at least recover the pieces of the sword? It would make things easier for me."

"Okay." Doni answered like an idiot, being stepping into the quicksand. He then started yelling something about there being quicksand. Balor was too exhausted to laugh.

* * *

_1990 July 31_

Today was Balor's 10th birthday. Normally he didn't have birthday celebrations. Actually, even today wasn't technically a birthday celebration. It was a celebration of his "cure" for lycanthropy. To celebrate the occasion, he was wearing a new-suit – a gift for his invention – that was dark blue. He had light make-up on to cover the scar on his head, while he wore a cheap watch. He was offered a Rolex, but punched the idiot in the face who thought coming to meet people suffering from poverty because they were assaulted years ago and have been discriminated since, wearing a watch more than their entire fortunes, was a good idea.

While the band did cure lycanthropy in 3 moon cycles, it did have side-effects. Side-effects included being in pain and unable to function properly during the 3 full moons, extended life-span – to about 140 years of life expectancy – resistance to diseases and viruses, regaining a more youthful body – based on witch dispositions and changes it was estimated that former weres would have the body of a 40 year old if they died of old age at 140, but this slowed aging didn't kick in until the teenage years - and significantly increased magical core sizes.

One didn't need to have a magical core to become a mage knight. Stamina, not magical core was used when casting those kinds of spells. However, the size of the magical core that one was born with had a huge impact on one's ability to perform wand magic. All werewolves that gained the benefit of his "cure" now had a great potential as wand-witches and wand-wizards. Essentially "get bitten by werewolf + wear wrist-band for 3 month" was a more effective formula for gain a large magical level, than being a pure-blood witch or wizard.

Balor still had a larger potential than most of the werewolves. In fact, or the two hundred or so that had been cured, only two matches him in core size. Of course, that was more a testament to his massive core size. While his skill wasn't anything special, his magical core size was rather astounding.

Balor's father wasn't here at the celebration. He was off in Indonesia having heard that a heretical god had descended there. Balor didn't mind. It was hard to have fun with father around. It was hard to loosen up around a guy that turned you into a salt statue by looking at you if you annoyed him. Even if you were named after the god that ability came from.

There were, however, a number of other important people here, besides a lot of former werewolves, that seemed to be debating the vital topic of what to call themselves now. The leaders of various packs were here, as well as magical associations coordinating the creation and distribution of the cures. Balor got the credit for creating them devices, but it was important that a lot of people knew how to make them, so that they could be produced quicker.

Balor himself didn't mind being left out of coordinating the logistics. He still got to know all the important personnel here, just didn't work with them right now. After all, he had no experience with this kind of coordination.

"Mr. Voban?"

He turned to see a beautiful girl of around his age looking at him. She had a beautiful blond hair and clear blue eyes. She had a smooth white skin, that was so beautiful, and such a fine, toned build, that he almost missed the few scars that were visible on her. She wore a simple white dress, and yet her beauty somehow made it look regal, making him blush.

"How can I help-"

He was cut off as she leaned down slightly and kissed him. Only now did he notice that she was slightly taller than him. Strange how he thought about that as he tasted her lips for a moment that was all too short as she pulled away from him again.

"Thank you for everything."

The girl said in a surprisingly cheerful manner, as Balor's face took on the color of red paint. This had been his first kiss. He had never even flirted with someone before. Somehow he never got around to doing that.

"I haven't done all that much-" Balor began, only to be cut off again by the girl who shook her head.

"Earlier today I got a letter from Hogwarts saying I was accepted to the school. Everyone of my age was accepted to either there, or Durmstrung. They also accepted older students as transfers. I don't know what kind of political influence your father has, but apparently he got half a dozen magical organizations to pressure the schools. Those who weren't accepted there were accepted into magical organizations to train there."

Balor was surprised. First, he hadn't heard about this. However, that wasn't so surprising. What _was_ surprising was his father giving a damn about the well being of someone else. That seemed incredibly out of character for the man. Bullying and threatening magical organizations across Europe was perfectly in character for him though.

"After I was infected, I thought that like my parents, I would never be treated as a human. Thanks to you and your father, we are finally being acknowledged as humans with our rights. Thank you. We owe you everything."

The girl seemed to be crying with happiness. For one horrible moment, Balor was tempted to take credit for it. If all the werewolves felt this way, he could build up his own private army. In a few years, he could form out of them a magical organization that possessed both magical knights and wand magic, full of hundreds of extremely talented people loyal to him. However, it wouldn't be the right thing to do.

Also, his father would have killed him. As his father said "I expect you to be a villain, but I expect you to have standards." In this family it was okay to rebel against the government, or to bring it crashing down. It was okay to rule others through right of might. It was even fine to create an army of people who feared to not follow you. What wasn't okay, was to manipulate people when they were emotionally weak into following you. Ambition was fine. Cunning was fine. Psychological manipulation was not okay.

So instead, he brushed the tears from her eyes, and brought her into a hug.

"You don't owe me anything. I didn't give you anything you didn't deserve to have. The people who took those from you or denied those from you owe you for the pain they caused you. I just did what was right, and what needed to be done."

She smiled at him for that. Naturally, as with all important conversations stated by important people, most people in the room heard them.

_For Harry's abilities, he will be using a mix of magic from both campione and the HP universe. In my opinion neither style of magic is superior to the other. Rather at somethings one is better, at other things, the other style is better._

_Other than that, his spell repertoir should be around 2nd year level. By the time he enrolls in Hogwarts, I'm planning to have him master all spells up to 2nd year level. Plus stupefy, because that spell is useful, and I can't figure out what year it is._

_As for his skill at wand magic, the amount of magical energy he has is exceptional. However, he doesn't learn spells quickly. He will have a massive advantage since he will have 4~5 years of practice on everyone else, but learn slower until others eventually catch up._


	3. Chapter 2: Shopping

_Thank you to everyone for writing reviews. It is great to know that people care enough about my story to comment on it. By popular vote, I will be making Harry a Campione at some point. I'm undecided on pairings – I intend to have multiple girls go after Harry, not sure how many or which ones he will actually go after himself – so any suggestions on that front are welcome._

_**BlackWrath**:_

_I edited it to set their life-expectancy to 140 years. I don't want to make it too high, because I don't want them to all be ridiculous. The average ex-werewolf is better than the average wizard. There will be some wizards with superior magical power to the average ex-werewolf. The 140 years is for the average ex-werewolf though. People might later on discover an ex-werewolf with magical potential that dwarfs even Harry/Voldemort/Dumbledore._

_I'm not going entirely by cannon for Harry's skill set. He will still excel at Defense Against the Dark Arts, but not because of a bigger spell list. Rather, because of superior combat instincts. That is also what DA teachings focused on. In those terms, this Harry should be ready to start teaching a group of students by his second year. Mostly, I don't want to make his spell repertoire too expensive, because with his other tricks, that might stop making anything short of Voldemort a credible threat _before_ he becomes a campione._

_**Bakapervert:**_

_For Voban, we don't see too much about his personality in canon. I'm mostly trying to extrapolate. As far as I can tell, he respects those that struggle against superior foes and don't give in. Which is why Harry caught his attention, and what his raising of Harry is based on. Constantly pushing him to beat superior foes._

_Also, I'm trying to separate the two magical worlds so they don't know much about each other. Currently the only campione are Voban and Luo Hao who stay out of politics, and pretty much don't do much unless a god pops by, and Aisha, who spends decades napping in a cave. Wand-wizards might have heard of campione, but they would dismiss them as rumors and legends. At least for now._

_**OSR Fanatic:**_

_Not sure. I'm considering Ginny, but she might end up becoming a temporary fling, or getting friend-zoned._

_**Code R.R.:**_

_Voldemort doesn't strike me as having the drive that lets you win against impossible odds, by gambling everything, including your life until the end. He might attain god-level powers through some ritual, but it won't be the usual campione ritual at least._

_**Terranorth:**_

_1) Voban is mostly Harry's father in name only. He doesn't personally raise the boy. It is more that he saw interesting potential in the boy, and is curious if it will eventually develop into something that can entertain him. Also, we really don't know how Voban behaves when he isn't busy preparing his next hunt. Although yes, I do realize this sounds out of character for said campione. Than again, this is the guy who, right after gaining his abilities hunted down the mage knights who were terrorizing all of Europe with their new toys. He isn't entirely heartless._

_2) By canon time-line, Doni won't be a campione until Harry is ~20. I put him in there, because when reading the light novels, I found his personality hilarious, and I'm considering incorporating a non-campione Doni into the story at some point. If Doni becomes a campione earlier, it will be as a rival to Harry, not as an ally that pulls him out of deep-shit._

_And Harry didn't meet Doni due to Voban. They met because both are similar; a genius at half the arts, an utter failure at the other half. They are opposites that make good rivals, and a good pair on missions. After all, who would want to pair with a failure, but a failure?_

_3) For now at least I'm trying to stick away from later-year spells. That will change with time though. Although I think I will take your advice, and try not to have him use the same spell too frequently in combat. As for the spell working on the Divine Beast, it was shot into the mouth of the creature, because there they are minimal to no magic resistance. And Harry fired a barrage that exhausted him (why he fell over later on). I figure that would be enough to temporarily stun the creature._

_4) Harry won't figure out the stone until at least the first clue pops up. But yeah, it would definitely not take all year, at least if he gives a damn about getting the stone._

_**Semaxx3:**_

_I don't want to make him excel at wand-magic yet, because, well, he will have access to more tools and be using more intelligent tactics than the Death Eaters did. So long as those are his primary opponents, access to too many higher year spells would cause him to just slaughter enemies._

_**Arashigan16:**_

_Making Harry tear through Death Eaters is something I'm happy to comply with._

_**PCheshire:**_

_Harry would be 24 by the time Godou becomes a Campione. Depends on how the story goes it might get that far, but I don't have it planned nearly that far ahead._

* * *

**Chapter 2: Shopping**

_1991, June 30_

Balor and a knight of his own age were clashing blades with one another. It was part of the training he did, regularly fighting others to push himself further.

His opponent wielded a large two handed sword, had a larger physique, and wore heavy armor, relying heavily on brute force. Balor wore no armor, although he had magically enhanced his closing anyways. In his right hand he held a short, one handed spear, and in his left hand, he held his wand.

As his opponent brought his sword down, Balor blocked and deflected the attack with his spear, losing his balance in the process from the sheer force of it. He was able to block the next strike as well, but ended up losing his weapon in the process. He quickly used leap magic to open up a distance of five meters between them before another swing could finish his fight, shooting two blasts of _expelliamus_ at his opponent.

His opponent naturally tried to jump after him, swinging his sword to knock away the first spell. Unluckily for him Balor had transformed the floor under his feet to ice, and with his powerful swinging, ended up losing his balance. As such, he failed to jump off, and was falling as the second spell struck him, disarming him.

His opponent didn't waste a moment, and as soon as all four limbs hit the ground, rolled to the side and got back up on his feet, into a combat ready position.

Balor hadn't wasted any time either though. As soon as he had shot off both spells, he had summoned a dagger into his free hand, and closed the distance between the two of them. With a simply leap he followed the boy in his roll, so that his adversary came off the ground with a dagger pointed at his face.

"I win."

Balor said with a smile, before vanishing the dagger. The knight just shrugged as the two went to retrieve their weapons. Balor's fight was definitely not fair or honorable. As far as the knight was concerned, Balor was a disgrace. As far as Balor was concerned, the knight was dead.

Having finished both his morning exercise, and his morning spar, Balor took a shower, and then headed off to have breakfast. He arrived at the breakfast table half an hour later to find one of his friends already there. She was a British ex-werewolf – after a long discussion the group had decided not to give themselves a new name, but just simply call themselves humans, and fuck all the racists and their opinions – who had turned 11 just a week ago. She was hoping to get into Hogwarts this year, and was going to spend the day with him today since it wasn't likely they would see each other for a while once the summer ended.

"Hey Chann."

He said as he took in her appearance. She was wearing an apron, and was almost done making breakfast. He had planned to make the breakfast himself, but apparently she had gotten to him before him. Of course, the fact that his cooking tasted was semi-deadly – how that happened when he used to be quite proficient when he was just 4 he didn't know – might have motivated her to get here early for her own safety. That, and she seemed to enjoy placing food in his mouth.

"Morning Balor."

She said with a smile. Despite having known Chann for a year now, Balor still couldn't believe that that was an English name, and not a Chinese name. She was a relatively short girl, coming up only to about the height of his shoulders. She had short, curly brown hair, black eyes, and somewhat tanned skin. He remembered that she used to be malnourished, but ever since a year ago her parents had gotten employment, and now she was being well fed at last.

She was also quite good at wand magic. Around 10 months ago, a man named Remus Lupin had apparently visited the group of ex-weres, as well as the werewolves still unwilling to get the cure. He had motivated many to regain their humanity, as well as started training those interested in wand magic in, well, wand-magic. Chann was one of those kids that he had trained.

Balor had sadly never met the man, even though he sounded like a delightful fellow. There were enough people that wanted Balor dead for his part in inventing a cure for Lycanthropy. Including a number of werewolves lead by a psychotic, mentally challenged animal called Fenrir Grayback. Balor didn't want to risk Lupin and any children he might be training by going to visit the man. He didn't mind being attacked himself, but he didn't want to drag others into it.

"You are over early." He said with a smile as he sat down to breakfast. It was bacon and eggs, and looked a lot less lethal than if he had made it. Of course, he had once someone made cereal poisonous just by serving it. He was actually quite proud of that incident.

"Some of us don't have the hots for food poisoning."

Before he could continue the banter, an owl flew through the window, and deposited a letter on the table. It then proceeded to eat his bacon while he read the letter, before hopping away, and fly back out the window. Chann looked on curiously at him.

"Hey Chann, how would you react if you found out you had been sleeping with an invisible boy of your age?"

He asked as he showed her the letter. She was sufficiently confused to take the letter and look it over. It was addressed as:

Mr. H. Potter,

The Second Bedroom,

Voban Castle,

Budapest,

Hungary

The contents of the letter didn't really clarify why Balor had received this letter either.

**HOGWARTS SCHOOL _of_ WITCHCRAFT _and_ WIZARDRY**

**Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore**

(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorceror, Chief Warlock, Supreme

Mugwump, International Confederation of Wizards)

Dear Mr. Potter,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall,

Deputy Headmistress

"Well, this is either your way of telling me that you are gay, or your birth name was Potter."

Chann informed him perfectly calmly. Of course, that _was_ the rational possibility.

* * *

_1991 July 2_

It had been two days since Balor – probably Harry Potter – had received his letter of acceptance from Hogwarts. Balor had just gotten to London, and was getting ready to buy all of his school equipment. It was rather early to buy school materials, but as he understood it he had to buy robes that did absolutely nothing but make it hard to move. He was intending to use the next month and a half to fix that failing.

He entered a small, rundown bar called the Leaky Cauldron. Based on the appearance, the name seemed like an exaggeration. He had seen leaky cauldrons that looked better than this dump. He understood it was this way to ensure non-magicals stayed out, but it still looked ridiculous.

Shrugging the stares he got, he entered the bar and walked out the back. It was true that he was an eleven year old kid, alone in a bar. He was also capable of killing anyone that tried to stop him. Maybe not in a fair fight, but he didn't believe in fighting fair, so that was fine.

Some people did call out to him, but he just moved on. No one physically obstructed him, mostly just a few insults about him being a kid. And about him being a mudblood – an insult wand-wizards used against those not born to magical parents – not knowing his place. _That_ upset him quite a bit. Too bad murdering those racist bigots was illegal. So he just moved on.

No one called him Harry Potter. Probably because he had his scar hidden again. Come to think of it, to the people here, lightning scar meant Harry Potter. If he turned out not to be Harry Potter, he would need to figure out how to permanently get rid of that scar.

At the back of the alley was a regular looking brick wall. Balor pulled out his wand, and tapped out a pattern that he had been instructed. It was ridiculous, but then it had been designed by wand-wizards.

The bricks fell away, revealing a street behind it. A large, wide, magical street, crammed into the tiny area between two rows of houses. Someone had _compressed space_ to hid this street. Say what you will about wand-magic, some of the shit it did was _very_ impressive.

"Doesn't change the fact that anyone wielding the divine powers of a hammer could get in here."

The alley looked rather ridiculous. It looked like the designs had been drawn up by a drunk five year old with crayons, and then magic was used to make up for the fact that the buildings couldn't support themselves. Actually, aside from the five-year old part, that was probably _exactly_ how this street had happened.

The street was made out of cobble stones, and everyone was wearing old robes. Quite frankly, aside from the magical aspect, this street looked like something you would expect to see during the birth of Jesus. Which, actually was probably when this street was originally made.

The only issue was that the robes the wizards wore went out of style before the middle ages hit. These idiots, of course believed this was the latest fashion. Consequently, it was mandatory, and they tried to blend in in the non-magical world wearing these stupid robes.

_No, bad Balor. No showing magical knight prejudices against wand-wizards. Even if both their culture and magic is inferior. Give them a chance. They might have a few smudges worthy of respect amongst all the filth._

The first store he walked up to was called Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. Surprisingly enough, they sold robes. The reason for the "all occasions" part in the title, was because the same damn robe style was used for every single occasion. Before he could enter the shop, ten owls arrive, and dumped letter on him, and then left.

Sighing, the boy mutters "wingardium leviosa" to float up the letters, and then "incendio" to shoot fire out of his wands, and burn the letters. He then promptly turned on his heels, and made a beeline for the Eeylops Owl Emporium.

The store sold owls. Bloody, fucking, pooping, letter carrying owls. Without much thought, Balor picked up a snow white owl in the shop, and took it to the counter. It cost him 20 gold coins – called Galleons – to buy the creature. He could have bought a different kind for cheaper, but he didn't care. He had something to take care of.

As he was exiting the store he named the creature Athy, gave it his filled out forms for Hogwarts, and then sent it off. So far, he had received well over 30 letters from them telling him to come to school. Apparently they _really_ wanted Harry fucking Potter to enroll at Hogwarts.

With that, he went back tot he robes store. The shop owner seemed to be a rather stoic woman who looked him over before simply asking "Hogwarts?"

Balor just nodded. "Yes ma'am. I need 3 robes please."

"Well, we will get right on it."

With that, she summoned an assistant, and they set about measuring him. There was another boy there, a short chubby kid that looked rather chubby.

"Hey, you also going to Hogwarts?"

The kid had been looking at him, but seemed rather surprised to be addressed.

"Yeah, I'm Neville Longbottom. You?"

"Balor Voban. For now at least. I will probably have a different name in a few hours." Balor admitted casually. He had decided already that he wouldn't hide his past. Well, most of it. There was a split in culture between the two wizarding worlds. They barely knew about each other. Hell, wand-wizards didn't even know about campione and heretical gods. Balor wanted to keep that secret for now.

"What do you mean?"

"I ran away from home when I was five. Until then, all I had been called was Freak, so I thought that was my name. My adoptive father and I never bothered to figure out my real name, so he gave me a few name. I figured since I was here anyways, I could head on over to Gringotts, and learn my real name while I was at it."

Balor decided to ignore the stares that he was getting. It wasn't like the truth was going to remain hidden anyways. Much better to reveal it now and get this all the hell over with.

"You ran away from home?"

"Yup, best decision I ever made." Delivered with a brilliant, blinding smile. "So, how are you feeling about Hogwarts."

The other boy's shoulders drooped. "I'm not too sure. I can barely use magic. I will probably fail and embarrass my family." He seemed rather depressed.

"Yeah, probably." The boy just stared, and the two assistants working on the two boys seemed like they were both about to slap him. "The basic of magic is conceptualization, visualization, and belief. Magic is believing something so hard, that the universe decides it is less of a pain to rewrite reality, than it is to argue with you. Consequently, if you believe you can't do something, you can't do it. You could have so much magical talent and power that you make Merlin cry like a little baby in his grave out of jealousy. If you don't have the confidence to believe in yourself, you won't be able to perform the simplest cantrip. Every time you make a mistake, it will increase your belief that you are a failure, causing you to fail more, even further lowering your ego, until your lack of self confidence turns you into a squib, no matter what your actual abilities are. Believe in yourself kid. Tell yourself that you will succeed until you start believing it. Tell yourself you can use magic, until you convince yourself to the point where every time you close your eyes, you see yourself doing whatever it is you want to do. If you can't believe in yourself, no one will. Certainly the universe won't."

He noticed that the two assistants had stopped measuring the two boys. After a short pause, they also noticed, and resumed their work.

"You really think I can succeed?" The boy asked, surprised. Balor just shrugged.

"I don't have the slightest idea as to your magical ability. What I do know is that you can't depend on others to believe in you. Whether I believe in you or not doesn't matter. You need to believe in yourself so hard, that no matter what others tell you, no matter how others insult you, you never doubt your ability. And now that I have said that, I'm willing to bet 10 galleons that that is going to come back to bite me in the ass somehow. By the way have you gotten your wand yet?"

The boy looked down at that. Balor followed his look, and noticed a wand at his waist.

"It is my father's wand. Gran wanted me to use it to honor his memory."

If Balor's hands weren't being measured at that moment, he would have face palmed.

"Okay, after this we are stopping by the local wand shop to get you a wand. This isn't up for negotiations. That wand is attuned to your father, not you. You can honor your father's memory by succeeding at magic, not using a wand that is literally not meant to be used by you. You can tell your grandmother she can honor your father's memory by moving the hell on, and not being stuck in the past, trying to make you into your father, dishonoring your father's memory by destroying his son's future in the name of honoring your father."

Neville just stared. "I don't think she would accept that."

"If you want, I can talk to her for you. _After_ we buy the wands."

Neville paled at that, and Balor just laughed. "Dont' worry, I can guarantee that my adopted father is a _lot_ scarier than your grandmother."

Yeah, Balor was pretty certain that Neville's grandmother hadn't literally wiped out an entire city for saying no to her, had a literal army of undead magicians at her back and call, and had deitycide as her hobby. After growing up with Sasha, it was hard for mere humans to scare him too much for him to speak his mind.

* * *

About two hours later, the two boys were done with all their shopping, and wearing a new set of robes, headed over to Gringotts, the bank for the racist wizards that was run by goblins. Because if you are going to believe that you are better than everyone else, you might as well trust your entire economy to one of those inferior creatures.

It was currently noon right now, and about an hour before Neville was to meet back up with his grandmother for lunch. The streets were rather full, but no one bothered a pair of 10 year olds – Balor had learned that Neville was born 1 day earlier than him – walking down the place.

"I have been wondering to ask. That is, if you don't mind. Er," Neville began. Balor just sighed.

"Neville, remember, confidence. Don't ask permission from me to ask a question. Stand straight, and ask what you want with a tone that says you expect to be answered. Now, what do you want to know?"

Neville straightened himself before asking. "Why are we headed to Gringotts now? Wouldn't you normally visit the bank _before_ you started shopping?"

"Normally, yes. However, I don't have any money in the bank as far as I know. The money I spent was from some of the inventions I made. I got paid in a combination of wizard money and muggle money. I have the muggle money stored in a bank, but the wizard money I carry on me."

Balor answered, mostly truthfully. He didn't precisely carry the wizard money on himself. Rather, he could summon his bag of holdin, er, bag with an enlargement charm cast on it, that held the money, with a trivial spell. Only difference was that he couldn't be robbed of his money like this.

"Eh, inventions? But aren't you only ten still?"

"Almost eleven. And yes, inventions. My most famous was the wrist-band cure for lycanthropy. You may have heard of it. I got one third of all profits from the sales of it. Which actually wasn't all that much, since all the magical organizations figured they would be better served by getting a lot of good-will with all the ex-weres, then from robbing the poor blind. That there were any profits at all was mostly an accident."

"Eh, that was you?" Neville stared surprised. He had not believed the rumors that a ten year old had cured lycanthropy. "But what do you mean they were better served by good will? Surely they could use more money?"

"The distribution was handled by mage knight magical organizations. It is a different wizarding culture from this one. Each organization is also a business of some sort. Often times a _very_ large business. They collect money so that they can use that money to increase the number and quality of their magical troops."

This wasn't exactly a secret, but it wasn't too well known in this community. _One of these days I wonder what would happen if the two cultures went to war with each other. They have no idea what each other can do, or even where their bases are._

"Basically, they saw this as an investment. Everyone cures of lycanthropy has great magical potential. If they are seen as the heroes that cured the ex-weres, the ex-weres would be more interested in joining the organizations. There was never much of a hope for monetary profit, but the profit in terms of human resources is massive. And even those who don't become mage knights might seek employment at their companies. Companies always want a larger pool of potential employees to draw from. Especially when that pool already adores them."

As Balor finished the explanation, they entered Gringotts. The goblin guards were sneering at the entering customers, scaring them. Balor decided to bow respectfully to the two guards before moving in. He almost laughed at the expression of surprise on their faces.

There was a short line at the bank, so the two boys got ready to wait. The group ahead of them seemed to be compromised of a horde of red-heads with freckles.

There were two parents, likely a mother and a father, both of whom looked slightly on the over-fed side. There was a somewhat skinny, very professional looking boy of around fifteen years of age. Him and his mother seemed to be lecturing what appeared to be two twins who's age was between that of Balor and the professional looking boy. The father just looked on from the side, seeming to struggle between having to lecture them, and being proud of their antics. There was a boy of around Balor and Neville's age that was rather tall for his age, almost as big as Balor. He seemed to be looking on uncertainly, as if jealous of the twins for being the center of attention, but glad for not being in trouble. Finally, there was a little girl, the youngest of them all, who seemed to be sneaking out of the eyes of her parents, with a grin on her face saying she had gotten away with a prank.

Balor noticed that no one in the family was wearing anything new. While the father was wearing a business outfit, it looked worn, and every kid's clothes looked like hand-me downs. The oldest boy had a mouse on him that was missing a finger, and for some reason the mouse was glaring at Balor. _Why the hell am I detecting killing intent from a _mouse_ of all things?_

"Hello boys, are you here to get supplies for Hogwarts?"

The father of the group ahead asked, having noticed Balor and Neville behind them. Clearly he was looking for an excuse to avoid being dragged into the argument. Balor didn't blame him. The man's wife looked scary.

"No sir, we just got our supplies. We are just here to take care of some quick business. My friend here is called Neville, and my name is Balor until I learn my real name in a few minutes."

"Your do you mean real name? How could you not know your name?" The boy of around Balor's age asked. He seemed to be very good at completely missing the glares that everyone in his family was giving him.

"My blood relatives never told me my name. When I was adopted six years ago, my adopted father gave me the first name Balor, and let me take on his family name of Voban. I figured since Hogwarts is going to use our birth names anyways, and since I was in the area, I could get the goblins to use their magic and learn my birth name."

Okay, that was a sufficiently non-depressing but accurate story of his past. So why were they looking at him with such sorrow?

"Oh, my that's horrib-"

"Balor Voban?" The oldest boy said at the same time his mother started talking, too excited to notice he had cut her off. Now the family was frowning at him. "Isn't that the name of the inventor for the cure of lycanthropy? I thought the rumors of you being only ten were, well, rumors." And now they were all looking at him with surprise.

"The one and only. Though in hindsight, I guess history books are going to have a bit of a problem keeping track of which name to use. On the topic of names though, may I ask to whom I have the pleasure of talking?"

The family introduced themselves as the Weasleys. The father was Arthur, the mother was Molly, the oldest was Percy, the twins were Fred and George, the youngest boy was Ronald (he preferred Ron), and the girl was Giverva (she preferred Ginny). Neville shook all of their hands, while Balor shook the hands of all the man, and kissed the hands of the two ladies. For some reason Ginny blushed at that. Probably had nothing to do with how he was a well built, confident, handsome, well dressed boy of her age. No, not at all.

As the introductions were done, it was the turn for the Wealeys, and they handed over their bank key to go visit their vault, before heading off to collect their money.

"Next!" The goblin called, and Harry walked up to the accountant.

"Hello sir, I would like to do a blood test, please." Balor said in as polite a tone as he could.

The goblin blinked for a moment, before shuffling through his papers to pull out a ritual sheet, and a ceremonial dagger. "That will be 10 galleons. Also, wipe that make-up off your forehead. There is no need to hide your identity, you are about to confirm it anyways."

Balor just nodded, handed over the money, pulled out a napkin, and wiped the make-up off to show his lightning bolt.

"Good, now put your hand out. We are going to need some of your blood, so hopefully you aren't too squeamish." The goblin said with a smile as he took out a long, ceremonial knife.

Balor put out his right hand, and barely reacted when his palm was slit, letting a large amount of blood drip on the page. As the blood started rolling along on the page, his injury appeared to heal, and he quickly took back his hand and waited for the results.

"Mr. Harry James Potter, son of James Potter and Lily Potter nee Evans, godson of Sirius Black and Alice Longbottom, descended of the most Ancient and Noble House of Potter, head of the House of Potter as soon as you reach age of majority or once you take up the mantle after reaching the age of majority, and next head of the most Ancient and Noble House of Black, in line after the current head, Sirius Black. Welcome to Gringotts Mr. Harry Potter. Would you also like to visit your family vault?"

The goblin delivered the entire speech in a completely monotone voice, as if he was described completely ordinary weather. It seemed that blood tests came with a free silencing ward, as no one reacted to the news.

"Thank you for your services sir. I'm sorry but I do not have the key to my family vault. Is there a way to visit the vault anyways? Also, may I know your name?"

"Why of course Mr. Potter." The goblin said as he took out a blank key, and snapped his finger, slightly altering it. "Your vault has been altered to only accept this key now. All previous keys for it will no longer work. That will be 1 galleon for our services. My name is Nutcracker."

"Thank you once again Sir Nutcracker. I would indeed like to visit my family vault at this time."

"Very well Mr. Potter. Jawbreaker!" Nutcracker called another goblin over, somehow through a privacy ward. "Escort Mr. Potter and his friend to his family vault."

"Right this way Mr. Potter." Jawbreaker said as he lead the two pre-teens after him.

"Next!" The goblin yelled out, as if he hadn't just located a missing celebrity.

* * *

The three of them silently got into a cart, and proceeded to roller-coaster through a bunch of tunnels, the goblin guide taking a seemingly random set of turns. There were dragons, and other monsters that weren't as impressive as dragons. After enough turns at a speed high enough to ensure they wouldn't remember the path, they eventually reached the potter vaults. During the entire time Balor – well, Harry now – contemplated his new identity.

The name Harry Potter became famous in the wand-wizarding world on October 31st, 1981, when he was one year old. At that time, a Dark Wizard who went by the title of Lord Voldemort went around terrorizing magical Britain. This Dark Wizard was so good at inspiring terror, that people were afraid to say his name, and even today, most people only dare call him You-Know-Who or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Saying the word "Voldemort" out loud would cause people to flinch or shudder.

This Voldemort was a blood purist, that wanted to remove the "impure" from the wizarding world. He also enjoyed killing and torturing "muggles" or non-magicals. Anyone that was descended of muggles was a target, even if they were born with magical capabilities. He waged a constant war on the wizarding world, torturing and killing targets freely.

After fifteen years of terror, for some reason the man set his eyes on the Potters. The Potters went into hiding, their location protected by a Fidelius Charm – a spell that made a location undetectable unless you were told the location by the secret keeper. Otherwise, you could walk up to the location in question, even be lead there by someone who knew the location, and physically would not see the target house, or be able to enter it – with their best friend and Harry's god-father Sirius Black as the secret keeper.

Sirius Black immediately betrayed Harry's family to Voldemort, telling them where the Potters lived. A week after the Potters had cast the Fidelius Charm, Voldemort appeared at Potter manor, blasted through the place, murdered Harry's parents, and shoot the killing curse at Harry.

The killing curse itself was famous as a curse that is illegal to use on humans. Using it on a human meant a life time imprisonment in Azkaban, the wizard prison, no matter what. It could not be blocked with shield spells, and everyone hit by it died. There had never been a survivor of the killing curse. Not until October 31st, 1981.

On that day when Voldemort fired the killing curse on Harry, a one year old boy, it had bounced off the boy, back into Voldemort, killing the so-called Dark Lord. Harry, as a one year old boy, became the first person to survive the killing curse, only getting a lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead in the incident, and ended Lord Voldemort's reign of terror. He was the wand-wizarding world's messiah figure, and known as "The-Boy-Who-Lived". Balor Voban was that boy.

Although, it was kind of blatantly obvious that it hadn't been _him_ that had ended the life of Lord Voldemort. He was certain one of his parents had done something to save him, and he was just getting all the credit.

_Thank god I haven't hit puberty yet. Otherwise I'm pretty certain I would be used this title to sleep with a bunch of gullible girls._

"So Neville, I didn't know your mother was my god-mother."

Harry said to Neville as they got out of the cart, and headed over to the vault. Jawbreaker took his key, put it in, and slid his finger along the vault, causing it to start unlocking.

"Yeah, I heard that your mother was my god-mother as well."

Neville said, trying to project confidence while talking about his friend's dead mother.

"So I guess that makes us god-brothers? Well brother, it is great to meet you after all this time."

As they were taking the vault opened, revealing its contents. All Harry could do was gasp, though he noted that Neville didn't look too surprised at the wealth.

Apparently Harry's parents had been _very_ rich. There were piles of gold – galleons – silver – sickles, 17 to 1 galleon – and brozne – knuts 29 to a sickle – inside of the huge vault. Harry considered for a moment whether he should just go ahead and buy a mansion with part of this money or not.

"This is your parent's trust fund for your education. You won't have access to the main vault, or the Potter mansion until you reach majority, or take up the mantle of Lord Potter."

"Holy Hell." Harry muttered.

This mound of treasure was supposed to cover just seven years of education? Harry was trying to figure out in his head for how many children of ex-weres he could cover the education of, on top of his own, using this pile of money. Probably over a hundred if he wanted to cover all seven years. _My parents thought I would need this much for myself?_

"What is the process of taking up the mantle of Lord Potter?" Harry asked out of sheer curiosity. This was more money than he needed already.

"You would need to be at least eleven years of age, at which point you could come into the bank and for a nominal fee of 10 galleons, we would take care of the process in a few minutes."

Well, Harry knew what he was doing on his birthday now.

Walking into the vault, he started collecting large quantities of all times of currency, and putting them in his charmed bag of extension. After collecting enough money, he exited the vault and entered the cart with Neville to get back out of the bank. Hopefully Harry could maintain enough discipline to not waste all of this frivolously.

* * *

The last business of the day was meeting Neville's grandmother at an expensive diner. Augusta Longbottom was tall, thin, and bony and looked like she chewed iron as an appetizer before getting down to breakfast. She was old and frail looking, and given her combat aura could probably kick Balor's – Harry's – ass to hell and back.

_Well, this should be fun._ Balor/Harry thought with dread. At least she wasn't the scariest person he had ever talked to. That honor strictly belonged with his father.

"I see you are a bit early Neville. Who is your friend?" The old lady asked as she glanced over Harry/Balor with a critical eye. Her eyes widened as they noticed his scar.

"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance Madam Longbottom." Harry/Balor said as he took her hand, and lightly kissed it. "My birth name is Harry Potter as I just recently found out, however in lieu of a birth name, I went by Balor Voban until now." He finished before straightening himself and looking her straight in the eye.

"I'm sorry for what happened to your parents. They were great people." She told him politely, making Harry/Balor nod.

"They held to and fought for their beliefs until the very end. My only desire is that I can have the same unwavering dedication until the very end." Harry/Balor admitted. _That, and that my adopted-father dies fighting for his own beliefs._

Harry didn't have any illusions about why he was adopted. There was no love in the family. Sasha Voban had seen potential in the young five year old boy, the potential to one day be a threat to the campione. Sasha was raising Harry, constantly throwing him into danger to nurture that potential, in the hopes that Harry would awaken that potential, and be able to entertain Sasha in one or more fights to the death.

Harry also had no illusion that if he didn't reach the level to threaten his father in the next ten years, or someone else killed his father for him by then – unlikely at best – he would die. Sadly, this wasn't the kind of strength that could be gained by collecting an army. Still, that wasn't for here and now.

"Quite right." The elderly woman said. "It was the same with Neville's parents you know. Did he tell you what happened to them?"

Harry shook his head. "Not the specifics, just that after fighting Voldemort, they are no longer around." To her credit, Madam Longbottom didn't flinch. Few people could hear that name before flinching. Usually only the very brave. Neville flinched though.

"Quite. They were tortured you know." Augusta said with clear pride in her voice. "Bellatrix tortured them with the _crucio_ spell trying to interrogate them. They went for hours without giving away anything until they were driven insane."

Neville looked rather depressed at this news. Harry couldn't blame him. However, the boy had seen enough horrors to understand the pride in the woman. Only the strongest of will held on until driven insane, refusing to give in to torture. Nearly everyone eventually broke down and gave in.

"Well, no use standing outside here. Let us go in and have lunch." The woman said with a pleasant voice as if they hadn't just been discussing the torture of her son and daughter-in-law.

The lunch was mostly rather uneventful. Augusta was rather impressed to hear that Harry was the one that had invented the cure for lycanthropy, but other than that they mostly just made small talk. At least until the topic of wands came up.

"Neville must hold pride in his parents. That is why I gave him his father's wand." Augusta stated plainly.

"Madam, that wand didn't choose Neville, it chose his father. It doesn't matter how much you assert that Neville should be like his father, it doesn't matter whom you tell it to, the _wand_ won't listen to you. _The wand_ will refuse to believe that Neville is his father. And it will refuse to work with Neville."

"I never said Neville is his father. But he should work to be like his father." Augusta insisted.

"Perhaps you would care to inform Neville's father's wand about this? I'm not the one you need to convince. It is the wand you need to convince. And the wand won't listen to your words."

"I am the lord of the Longbottom household. Who are you to question me boy?"

"I'm not the one questioning you. Frank's wand is. And it doesn't matter how correct your arguments are. The wand won't listen to them. There is nothing anyone can do to change that. You can either accept reality, or dishonor Frank Longbottom's memory and sacrifice."

Neville spit out the water he was drinking at that. Madam Longbottom looked like she might draw a wand on Harry.

"How dare you?" She gasped out.

"How do you think Frank would react if he learned that after his sacrifice you couldn't accept his loss? That you were trying to use his son as a replacement for him, and hurting his son, as well as ruining the boy's future in the process? Frank didn't hold his tongue so Neville could become his replacement. The man held his tongue so that he could guarantee his son's future. Think about it. Don't pursue your own desires when raising Neville. Pursue what you think Frank would have wanted. You owe your son that much."

Harry finished before he went back to eating his meal calmly. The rest of the meal went by silently, and a short time later they made curt farewells, before everyone went their own way. As Harry was leaving, Athy landed on his shoulder, having returned from letter delivery.

The two headed for the Leaky Cauldron, where Harry rented a room for the next 30 days. It had only cost him 30 galleons, and the room was rather big and clean, with a decent sized bed. Getting on the bed, he started reading his Potions textbook – having no experience with the topic – while Athy sat down next to him.


	4. Chapter 3: Establishing the Family

_One change I'm making from typical HP fanfiction, is that I'm not making Dumbledore a manipulative asshole. In the books he always struck me as caring about Harry, and the phrase "for the greater good" being something he had abandoned decades ago. Consequently he blames himself when his actions hurt others. Of course he does genuinely believe in giving people multiple second chances._

_Also, I tried to make things move along a bit more quickly, so that I could actually get Harry to Hogwarts._

_**Sakura Lisel:**_

_That is why Harry bought Hedwig (called Athy here). Because he kept being spammed with letters, and couldn't reply. And Harry will be using his birthname because fame has power. He is used to having attention focused on him, so he might as well make use of it._

_**Tsun:**_

_Because as ridiculous shit as Harry can pull without wand-magic, combining wand-magic with magic item creation gets even more awesome. Also, it lets him learn the capabilities of wand-magic. So he knows how to beat users of it. Harry is one of the few with access to both worlds of magic. He wants to take advantage of that._

_Also, don't underestimate wand-magic. Going pew-pew with curses/jinxes traveling at slow speeds isn't very impressive, true. Transmutation on the other hand, can be very deadly._

_**Karthis9:**_

_Thank you_

_**Ressan:**_

_Yeah, I really don't see how I could make Harry a threat without making him a campione. Not realistically at least. Doesn't mean Harry won't try though..._

_**Skullders:**_

_True. However, there are a lot of talented potential recruits for Harry to add to his own army. Besides, he needs to become a threat to the strongest Campione in existence in a decade or so. Doesn't mean that is the only thing he is going to focus on._

_**Terranorth:**_

_Thank you, you gave me a few fun ideas to work with._

_As for Harry being friendly, Voban can afford to be a complete asshole, because he is a Campione, and possibly the strongest Campione. Harry doesn't have the luxury. He needs to make allies. Also, the only trait Voban ensured Harry has, is the drive to always win and never give up. That is something that I see as the one universal trait of all Campione. Never despair, always seek victory, and always create it. All other personalities are optional. Like, acting nice to people so that you can use them, or actually becoming friends with people._

_And what do you mean there is nothing to do at Hogwarts? There is the entire Forbidden Forest to exterminate/explore/conquer! Plenty of battle experience potential right there. Also, Harry can use idle time to make more magical items. XD_

* * *

**Chapter 3: Establishing the Family**

_1991 July 16_

It had been two weeks since Harry Potter had learned of his birth name. He had relocated to a muggle hotel in London, so as to avoid being approached in person by random fans, or politicians. Or his magical guardian. He especially wanted to avoid that one until August. Since then he had passed his time by reading textbooks, enhancing his robes, and filling out forms.

For his robes, he had succeeded in adding a minor enhancement to all three of his robes. They now swayed slightly as he moved so that they never got in his way. This way he could sprint, jump, back flip, or fight in his robes without being hampered. He had also added in a featured where they automatically cast _reparo_ and a cleaning charm on themselves, making them self-cleaning and self-repairing.

As for filling out forms, there were two things he needed to take care of. First of it was about books written about him. He was working with Gringotts to get loyalties out of people who had written books about him. This was going rather well, since the Goblins handled most of it, and were _very_ knowledgeable about the laws. Also, they handled all the money that was being contested, so really, their opinion was all that mattered.

He was also giving information to a writer that was working on making an accurate biography about Harry. This mostly included just forwarding information people had collected on him when he was known as Balor. In the two weeks he had already forwarded all the information the man needed, along with key quotes. Since he had been in the process of writing the biography of Balor Voban anyways, he was almost done with his book. It was expected to be in print before September.

Finally, he had been in contact the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, also known as the DMLE. He had requested to meet with Sirius Black, wanting to ask the man a number of questions. Harry was quite aware that normally this request would be refused. However, he was the Boy-Who-Lived, the Boy-Who-Cured, and was less than a month away from gaining the position of the Lord of an Ancient and Noble House along with a seat on the Wizengamot. The DMLE knew he could just force the issue as soon as he was 11, so eventually they just gave in.

It was with such results that today Harry Potter was meeting Sirius Black, the man who had betrayed his father and mother. He had two Auror – magical police – with him as guards, but he didn't mind.

The wizarding prison, Azkaban, was a rather miserable speck of an island. The prison itself was just a solid stone fortress, where apparation – magical teleportation – wasn't possible, and prisons had their wants taken from them. Other than that, prisoners were kept in individual cells, with 12 aurors standing as guards over the entire prison.

What truly made Azkaban such a horrible place were the dementors. These were 3 meter tall humanoid creatures that looked like gray, decaying, hooded bodies. These creatures sucked the happiness out of people, and forced them to relive their worst memories over and over again, just by being around. Or they could suck your soul out with a kiss. There also was no official known way to kill a dementor.

_I wonder _how_ a campione would go about slaughtering these creatures. Hmmm, need to figure out a way to convince dad to assault this place, and exterminate these creatures. Maybe if I plant enough fake evidence that a heretical god descended here, and let magical associations discover that evidence?_

Harry personally didn't notice the effects of the dementors. His mental defenses were slightly _different_ from normal. Rather than just creating a wall that is as tough as possible, he had an army of negative emotions and experiences – mostly taken from others – in between two walls. Anyone trying to invade his mind would experience years of despair and anguish in mere seconds, while a second wall protected Harry from experiencing those emotions.

Given that these emotions were at the front, the dementors never got around to moving past his second wall and actually sucking out his happiness. These despair and anguish was being replayed somewhere, but once again, Harry was protected from it. Not that the boy knew _why_ dementors weren't affecting him at all. He never considered how his defenses would interact with the creatures.

"Sirius Black, you have a visitor."

One of the Aurors announced to a man in chains in his cell. Sirius Black didn't look malnourished at least, but he definitely was not being fed well. He also wasn't being kept clean, and looked like a ragged, starving mess of a man. The man's hair had probably originally been black, but it was looking more gray now. Sirius didn't look in his early 30's. He looked like a homeless person in his sixties.

The man's eyes had a look of emptiness that Harry recognized. His eyes used to be equally empty, although the man also showed the momentary glimmer of life that had allowed Harry to survive, to be adopted. This man, had survived ten years in this pit of despair without giving up. Whatever he believed in, he still had hope for something.

There had been a few other prisoners like this, but very few. Mostly the insane psychopaths who believed Lord Voldemort would return and free them. _Those who have something to look forward to._

"Hello boy." Sirius said in a casual manner. The two Aurors stepped away to give the two some privacy as Harry had requested.

"Hello Black. I was wondering if you could answer some questions for me." Harry asked in as neutral a tone as he could manage. Throttling this person would serve nothing.

"And why would I do that boy?"

"The kindness of your heart." Harry shrugged. "I don't know if there is anything you want that you are allowed to have in this hell hole, so I doubt there is anything I could give you. However, I refuse to force you to answer my questions."

Sirius laughed at that. "At least you are honest. But you won't get anything out of people like that. So tell me, what do you want to know?"

Harry knelt down to look at the man, and brushed his hair aside to show Sirius the lightning bolt scare. It made Sirius bolt up right and rush to the edge of the cell, trying to reach through the bars to Harry. "Harry?" The man asked.

"Yes, I'm Harry Potter." Harry answered, as he signaled the Aurors that it was okay. "I was wondering if you could tell me why you betrayed my parents. All I have read tells me that you and my father were best friends, that my parents trusted you. There was never anything from your perspective. I think I have the right to know why my parents died."

That, and Harry had a fascination with knowing why people betrayed others. He was planning to build himself an army eventually. Knowing why someone might betray him would be useful knowledge.

"I didn't betray them." Sirius said, causing Harry to look surprised. "I know this sounds ridiculous, but it wasn't me who betrayed them." Sirius said, sounding almost desperate for Harry to trust him. And yet they lived in a world where mind-reading, and a drug that forced you to answer questions truthfully existed. Surely a man wouldn't be imprisoned in this hellhole for ten years without being sure that he committed the crime he was accused of?

"You know how ridiculous you sound right? There was evidence for the entire wizarding world to unanimously believe you guilty after all."

"Please" was all Sirius said, before Harry took his hands.

"Will you let me look in your mind?" Black went wide-eyed at that. "It isn't the same as your legilimancy, but it lets me see through your memories. If you truly are innocent as you say, just show me those memories, and I swear I will level every tool at my disposal to get you a new trial."

As Harry said this, he started considering the tools at his disposal. After a short thought, he figured that he should at least be able to grind the current Minister of Magic, _and_ the current head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement into dust. It would be political suicide for him, but Harry was willing to go _very_ far for justice sometimes.

Sirius, also seemed to be thoughtful for a bit, but then nodded. So Harry raised his hands, and put them on Sirius's head. It was unnecessary, but it would help make the entire thing completely painless. "Okay, I want you to focus on the thoughts when the secret keeper was determined." Harry told the man, and then the memories started flashing through his mind.

* * *

_This was a memory from 10 years ago, when Sirius was still young, and looked like quite the lady-killer. He was standing with three other people, a small rat-like person that Harry didn't take much notice of right now, a male that looked remarkably like a 10 years older Harry, and a red-headed woman that had his green eyes._

_This was Sirius talking to James and Lily Potter, Harry's parents. A quick confirmation told Harry that this information was indeed real, and not a fake, or altered memory. Sirius really believed what he was showing here._

_The four of them were standing in an empty courtyard, devoid of all other people._

"_What did you want to talk about Sirius?" James asked. "We already decided that you should be our secret keeper. I trust you with my life brother."_

_Sirius looked happy at the praise, but shook his head. "James, this is too important. Everyone knows that we are the best of friends. Everyone will immediately suspect that I'm the secret keeper. We need someone that you can trust that no one would suspect. I would suggest Remus, but I think he might be the spy James."_

_James and Lily both looked appalled. Pettigrew – Harry guessed that was the identity of the rat person now – had a smile on his face at this. "How can you say that Sirius!" James yelled._

"_James, you and your son are too important." Sirius pleaded. "I might be wrong, but we can't take that risk. You should make Pettigrew your secret keeper. He is also our brother, he would never betray any of us. And yet, no one will suspect him."_

_James just sighed. "Very well, Pettigrew will be our secret keeper, but we will let everyone think you are the secret keeper. Sirius, please be safe. This means that HE will be going after you."_

"_For you, anything is worth it brother." Sirius answered, before giving James a tight hug._

* * *

Harry stared at Sirius. He couldn't believe it. An innocent man had been dumped into Azkaban for ten years!

"It is my fault." Sirius muttered. "Pettigrew was the spy. As soon as he became the secret keeper he immediately ran to his master. When I heard he had betrayed your parents, I went after him. I'm sorry, I should have stayed behind to protect you."

"It isn't your fault." Harry told Sirius. "You trusted a friend. Never blame yourself for that." Still, there was something about all this that was bothering him. "If my father and mother were going into hiding, why didn't one of them become the secret keeper? Then the only way to find the house would have been to find them first, but they couldn't be found unless the house was found first."

Sirius looked dumb struck for a moment. Then, he proceeded to hit his head against the bars of the cell. Harry grabbed his head tightly and stopped him before he repeated the step multiple times. "We are all idiots."

"I know. Still, you are an innocent idiot. And that means, we need to get you out of here."

"How?" Sirius asked looking curiously at Harry.

"I don't know the exact details yet. But for now, can I see the memory of your trial?"

Sirius nodded, and once again Harry got to experience the past.

* * *

_The trial wasn't very exciting. There was a large clustered of people gathered together, sitting in a courtroom, as Sirius Black was being dragged towards a chair. There was an auror on either side of him, and a dementor behind him._

"_Sirius Black!"_

_A ministry official declared as Sirius was chained to his chair. The crowd gasped and pointed at him. Accusations flew for a few seconds, before people calmed down enough for things to proceed._

"_This court finds you guilty of betraying the Potters to the Dark Lord, and thereby causing their death. You are also found guilty of the crime of the murder of Peter Pettigrew as he tried to apprehend you. You are also guilty of collateral damage to the order of 12 muggles. For this two major crimes, and 12 counts of minor law violations, your punishment is a life-time imprisonment in Azkaban."_

_The crowd went into an uproar. Sirius tried to get a word out, but couldn't hear himself. Over the crowd, the court 'judge' shouted "Take him away" and Sirius was dragged off._

* * *

"What. The. Hell." Harry cursed at that memory.

"Barty Crouch built his career on throwing Death Eaters by the horde into Azkaban. By whatever means necessary." Sirius explained.

"Right, and I'm going to build my career on saving innocents, starting with you, by whatever means necessary. Would you be fine with showing your memories to a court, and using Veritaserum at the trial?" Harry asked.

Sirius nodded. "Those aren't definitive though."

"No" Harry agreed. "But some evidence versus no evidence will put things in our favor. I might need to call in some favors for this though. I hope that we meet again soon, this time in a less gloomy location."

Harry said, before he departed, following the two Aurors out of Azkaban.

* * *

As soon as he was out of Azkaban, Harry requested the Aurors to take him to the Ministry of Magic. He told them he wished to talk to the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, and the head of the DMLE, Amelia Bones.

The two agreed to take him to the ministry, so long as he understood that both Fudge and Ms. Bones might be busy. That was fine by Harry, so the Trio apparated to the Ministry of Magic. The two Aurors then went off to their jobs. Considering they were reporting to Amelia, they agreed to tell her that he wished to talk with her.

Harry, in the meantime, headed for the office of the Minister of Magic. He ignored the stares pointed in his direction, and rapidly covered the distance to the office.

"Are you lost my boy?"

Harry turned at the voice, and noticed two people looking at him. One was a Gandalf look-alike, if the description in the Lord of the Rings novels was anything to go by. The other was a portly little man, with rumpled grey hair, and a bizarre dress style. He had a pinstriped suit, scarlet tie, long black traveling cloak, pointed purple boots, and lime green bowler hat. Harry recognized them as Albus Dumbledore, and Cornelius Fudge respectively.

As Harry turned at them, and they saw his scar, they probably recognized him as well. A Las Vegas hooker carrying a glowing sign would have stood out less than him and his tiny scar.

"Hello minister Fudge, hello professor." Harry said bowing to either of them. "I'm Harry Potter, and Minister I was just headed towards your office to see if you could make time to talk to me."

Eh, subtlety wasn't Harry's style. Bludgeoning his way through things via fame was more down his alley. _I guess this means I don't qualify for Slytherin?_

"My boy, please do come along. Me and professor Dumbledore were just discussing you." Cornelius said with a jovial smile as he lead the three into his office. He waited until all three were seated before turning to them. "Now, I'm sure you have a very important reason for coming to talk to us, but I hope you don't mind if we ask a few questions first."

Harry shook his head. "Not at all Minister. I shall be happy to answer any questions you have."

"My boy," Albus said, trying to take control "perhaps you could start by telling us where you have been these past six years. We were worried ever since you were kidnapped on your birthday five years ago."

_Kidnapped? Okay, that might be _technically_ accurate, but it was very willing on my part._

"Sir" Harry responded, trying to address both men "I have spent most of the past six years in Hungary with my adoptive father, Sasha Dejanstahl Voban de la Marquis. However, I have taken a few excursions for various missions throughout continental Europe, most notable Italy, Greece, and Norway."

"And this Sasha Marquis", the Minister asked "Is he the one that kidnapped you?"

"It was closer to assisting me in running away from home sir. I went with him willingly, and I could have left him to return to England at any time sir."

"And why have you never returned to your family then? Why have you never told your magical guardian, Albus Dumbledore?"

"Sir, as I said, I ran away from home. I never returned, because I never want to go back there, ever again. Under any circumstances. As for why I never told my magical guardian, I didn't even know I had one. As far as I'm aware, aside from the Hogwarts acceptance letter, this is the first time that Albus, my magical quote guardian unquote, have interacted. Although I have to wonder where my guardian was in my first five years when I needed guarding."

Harry finished, smiling at Cornelius, before shooting a glare at Dumbledore.

"My boy, I assure you, your were placed in that house for your own safety and protection. It was for your own good. There are-" Dumbledore began, before Harry forcefully cut him off.

"Protection from _what_. What did all the constant verbal and physical abuse protecting from _sir_? How was suffering from malnutrition and injuries to the point where, to quote the doctor who diagnosed me, 'he would have died if this had continued for another six months. That he didn't die months ago is already a miracle' for my own good?"

"My boy, surely you are exaggerating." Dumbledore began, only to be cut off, by Harry taking off his robe and shirt, and showing his back. Both adults gasped at the scars on his back.

"I received these a day before I ran away. Do you have _any_ idea how hard a person needs to be whipped by a belt, that the scars from the injuries would remain even _after_ magical healing? Do you know what I was called? _Freak_. For the first five years of my life, I thought that I wasn't human. I thought that I was a species called _freak_, that my name was _freak_, and when my family didn't beat the crap out of me on a day that they were being merciful and generous. I assure you _sir_ I am _not_ exaggerating."

Dumbledore and Cornelius paled. Neither had known about the treatment that Harry had received. Cornelius had assumed that with Dumbledore as Harry's guardian, that the boy was safe. Dumbledore on the other hand, had hoped those muggles would be _slightly_ abusive. Just enough that Harry wouldn't want anyone else to go through that, but not enough to break the boy. By the looks of it, whomever this Sasha Voban was, he _had_ saved young Potter's life.

"Does that answer your questions, _professor?_" Harry asked as he put back his clothes. He then took a deep breath, and looked calmly at the Minister. "Is there anything else you would like to know sir?" He asked as politely as he could, without a hint of reproach.

"No, that quite answers my questions." The minister asked, looking sorry at the boy. "I'm sorry my boy for what you have gone through. I swear I will do all I can in my power to make it better." Albus said as a way of response.

_All according to plan!_ Harry couldn't help but say. Not that he _had_ a plan. But everything had somehow come together well enough.

"Well, in that case would the two of you mind if we moved on to why I am here?" The boy asked. Both men nodded. "Today, I had visited Sirius Black in Azkaban." He said calmly. Both men gasped in shock at this. Cornelius looked through a number of papers on his desk, until he found one that said "Permission for Harry James Potter to visit Sirius Black, signed Amelia Bones, Head of DMLE"

"Why would you do that Harry?" Cornelius asked, looking confused. Harry didn't blame the man. _He_ didn't accept the reason he told himself.

"I was curious as to why he would betray his best friend, that he saw as a brother. It is an action that I just could not understand."

"That is because such an action makes no sense my boy." Albus said wisely. "Only those who have gone into madness would take such actions."

"Yes, which is why Sirius did not commit the crime." Harry said calmly as the two older man stared. "When I visited him, with his permission, I looked into his mind at his memories. Sirius wasn't the secret keeper. Pettigrew was. They told no one so that everyone would assume the secret keeper was Black. Sadly the plan backfired. Since making Pettigrew the secret keeper was Sirius's suggestion, he blames himself for the death of my parents."

"But the trial." Cornelius said. Albus paled at those words though. _I do think I might have recalled seeing someone like Albus at the trail._ If so, the man knew how there _wasn't_ really a trial.

"I was also shown a memory of the trial. Sirius was dragged it. He was pronounced guilty. He was dragged out. There was no evidence presented, no chance given to Sirius to defend himself. That is what I ask of you Minister. I ask that my god-father be given a fair trial, so that an innocent man need no longer rot in Azkaban."

Cornelius looked down at the table. "I understand how you feel boy. But after all this time. What this would do to my reputation."

"Cornelius, it is the right thing to do. We must do what is good even when it hurts us, else we are no longer of the light." Albus tried, but Cornelius shook his head at that.

"You don't understand Albus. This could destroy me. Especially, think if the boy was wrong."

"Minister." Harry began. "What this does to your career depends on how the media presents it. After all, it was your predecessor who jailed Sirius Black, not yourself. How about we allow yourself and Ms. Amelia Bones to review the evidence by yourselves first? Without notifying anyone else of course. We figure out what is needed to get Sirius Black free, and see if we have all that evidence.

"If we do, only then do we conduct the trial, knowing full well the results. Tip off someone in the media that likes to write big stories. Someone that is known to be fair, and present the truth. Someone who sometimes writes well about you, other times attacks you would be perfect, as then people know that the news could be trusted. We present the story as you discovering a great inequality, and taking great personal risk to correct it for the sake of justice and what is right.

"Just to drive the point home, we have a picture of myself hugging Sirius Black just as he has been freed, while you stand malevolently in the background, arms raised. A title along the lines of "Minister returns family to Boy-Who-Lived" might be sufficiently eye-catching. Just to drive the point home. A book on my biography that is actually accurate – since I assisted with it – is currently in the works, and should be published before September. If we work quickly, we can have this in the book as well. The cover of the book could once again be the picture of you reuniting me and Sirius Black.

"Professor Dumbledore, did just agree a few minutes ago to do all in his power to make my life better. I believe helping me here falls into that category. Think about minister, to use your own words, what this could do to your reputation. Right now my popularity is at its height. With just a simple action, you could end up riding that wave."

_The boy is definitely a Slytherin._ Both adults thought at this. Cornelius though, was quite literally drooling at the picture that Harry had painted. He had never been a popular minister. With this, his popularity could rival that of Albus Dumbledore, or the Boy-Who-Lived. Not to mention, with Sirius Black out of prison, and Harry quite likely to be emancipated in 2 weeks, that would be 2 extra seats on the Wizengamot that would vote in his favor.

"Lets get Amelia in here so that we can start discussing the details." Cornelius said with a smile.

* * *

_1991 July 20_

It had been four days since Harry had met Cornelius Fudge, Albus Dumbledore, and Amelia Bones to discuss the plans for getting Sirius Black out of prison. Normally, politics didn't work this fast. However, Fudge understood that if he wanted to ride Harry's wave of fame, he needed to act now.

Consequently Bones and Fudge had visited Black the very next day, collected sufficient evidence to convince themselves the trial would be a success, and set the trial for three days later.

The trial was once again a complete and total farce, since there really wasn't any evidence against Black. Albus Dumbledore gave a great speech about what a crime had been done to Sirius. Harry shed tears – turns out there were potions to make you cry – as he talked about how great it was to know that he had a family and how great a man Cornelius was to restore justice to them. Amelia walked the court, step by step, through how the last trial was a farce and a violation of justice. Cornelius, running the trials, insured that no one had a chance to speak out against their case.

During the trial they did learn that both Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew were animagus, people that could transform into animals. Black could become a large dog – a grim – and Pettigrew a mouse. While it was illegal for an animagus to not be registered, in the face of how long Sirius had sat in prison, this minor problem was waived.

After that show, an overwhelming majority votes for Sirius Black's innocence, although there were a few who still tried to convict him. They seemed to be a group lead by one Lucius Malfoy, a name Harry vowed to remember.

The damned paper-work – registering an animagus form, clearing Sirius of all crimes, restoring all titles, compensation, setting him up as Harry's magical guardian – took longer than both the trial. Actually, even the photo-op took longer than the trial. After all, every news-paper wanted to run the story of Cornelius heroically rescuing the Boy-Who-Lived's family. Cornelius was happy to oblige them.

And so it wasn't until 1pm, an entire 6 hours after the trial had started, that Sirius Black and Harry Potter left the Ministry of Magic and entered Diagon Alley. The two drew a lot of stares, but a special addition of every wizarding news-paper was already being delivered. Almost as if Cornelius Fudge had made sure the articles were written before the trial had ever started.

_Actually, that is probably exactly what had happened._

Consequently, the two were able to walk the streets mostly unmolested.

"You know, I agree to letting you pay for my things" Harry began "and I realize we need to go to Gringotts for that first. But I'm rather hungry, and you look like you should be eating six meals a day for the next month. How about we make an exception this once, and you let me pay for our meal. We can go to Gringotts after that."

Sirius scowled at Harry. Given how badly his stomach grumbled at the same time, it wasn't very effective. Eventually he just laughed.

"You got that right pup. So the Leaky Cauldron?"

"The Leaky Cauldron father wolf." Harry nodded.

"I'm not a wolf. I'm a grim. A lot more noble and loyal." Sirius corrected.

"Yes, father Grim." Harry laughed as the left Diagon Alley.

Entering the Leaky Cauldron, they found a tall, black-haired witch in emerald green robes leading a trio in muggle clothes. The trio looked like a family. The father was a tall, well-built man that reminded Harry of the various warriors he had come across. Probably an army veteran. The mother seemed like a nice, kind person who didn't snap heads for a living.

They had a daughter that looked around Harry's age, with bushy brown hair, and brown eyes. Aside from slightly overgrown teeth, she looked rather pretty. Sirius noticed Harry's stares, and let out a quiet wolf whistle right by Harry's ear, making the boy blush.

As Sirius stood back up, the witch with the family appeared to notice Sirius, and drew her wand, pointing it at the man. The entire tavern went quiet at this action, and the girl and her parents stood back in horror. Sirius raised his hands with a growl.

"I don't know how you got out of jail Sirius Black, but this gives me an opportunity to make you pay for what you did to James and Lilly Potter."

Hearing this, half the bar raised their wands, also pointing it at Sirius. It seemed Harry's god-father wasn't a popular man. Harry just pinched the bridge of his nose. _We really should have waited until everyone read the news-papers._

There were a total of eight bar patrons, and 3 of them had wands on Sirius. Then there was this witch. The bar owner also had his wand pointed at Sirius. The muggle-born girl and her family didn't seem interested in interfering, but Harry wasn't sure which of the other bar patrons would draw wands.

"You don't read the papers much, do you Minerva." Sirius said calmly, trying to stop a scene from happening.

_Minerva? Wasn't that name on the letter? Deputy Head-mistress or some other such title? Damn it. I can't beat her unconscious then. Would look bad on my school record if I beat up the vice-principle equivalent!_

"I'm not interested in your jokes Sirius. You and James were like brothers, and you betrayed him."

That meant threats were out of the question as well. Hmmm, how to explain this without sounding like a hostage. _Yeah, I'm fucked. And if I use magic, I will get in trouble with the law, unless they shot first. But I always shoot first when there is any shooting._

"Everyone, please calm down." Harry began. "Sirius Black is currently here, because he was legally released from Azkaban."

"I don't know who you are boy," Minerva began "but this man is a mass murder, and a traitor to his friends. There is no way he would be let out of Azkaban after that." Now step away from him.

Harry just sighed, brushed his hair aside, and displayed the lightning bolt. All the wizards – plus the bushy girl – save Sirius were shocked. Which didn't add to his credibility, but shocked people tended to have worse aim and reflexes. "I'm Harry Potter ma'am. And my god-father was let out of prison because he was proven innocent of those crimes. I lost him – the only family left alive that loves me – once due to a miscarriage of justice. I won't lose him again, this time to a trigger happy wizard. Now why don't we all put our wands away, and end this Mexican stand off?"

He let go of the hand holding up his hair, and watched as two of the patrons put away their wands. That just left one weary customer, and Minerva.

"Isn't a Mexican stand-off when both sides point weapons at each other?" The bushy haired girl asked. "You don't have any weapons on you."

Harry nearly laughed at that. He had spent the last six years training to be a human weapon. He had more combat experience than most aurors. As far as he was concerned, him showing hostile intent counted as pointing a weapon at someone. But he decided to play along with the girl.

"Okay, in that case can people stop pointing weapons at and threatening my family? I'm _pretty_ sure that is illegal."

The remaining two reluctantly lowered their wands. Minerva McGonnagal didn't notice the stairs that the bushy haired girl's family was giving her. The girl herself was too busy staring at Harry.

"For now you are right Mr. Potter. However, when you get to Hogwarts, if a Professor gives you an order be sure to obey it."

Harry just smiled. "Professor, that isn't the kind of lesson you deliver to someone after threatening their family with bodily harm because you didn't get around to reading the news-paper yet, and are unwilling to let them speak. Kind of loses its impact."

The bushy haired girl was scowling at Harry, though her parents were nodding along, and looking doubtfully at McGonnagal. Sirius seemed to be trying to suppress a laugh, while the professor's face looked extremely sour.

"Well, Mr. Potter, I need to take Ms. Granger and her family shopping for supplies through Diagon Alley. I'm rather busy so if you will excuse me."

"If you want, we can take them for you." Sirius said with a smile. "My god-son and I were just about to have lunch, but after that we can show the Grangers around for you. Unlike you, we aren't very busy, and should be able to show them around at a more leisurely pace. Besides, it would give Harry a chance to get to know one of his classmates."

"That would be an excellent idea." Mr. Granger said before McGonnagal could respond. "We would rather not infringe on your time professor, and we did miss lunch so far."

"Very well Mr. Granger. Black, Mr. Potter, I leave Ms. Granger in your care." And with that McGonnagal left the store, apparating away.

"So, what does everyone want for lunch?" Tom, the owner of the bar asked, trying to break the awkward silence. Sirius and Harry immediately ordered without looking at the menu. When the Grangers pointed out they didn't have wizarding money yet, Harry just offered to foot the bill for them.

* * *

"So, could you perhaps tell us what that commotion was about?" Mr. Granger asked once they had all ordered a meal.

"Sure. However first I need to ask what you know about me. Sadly I'm rather famous in this world due to something that happened when I was a one year old baby. And it will be necessary for you to understand that event for me to fully explain what happened."

Harry realized it was unusual for a kid to handle the discussions, instead of the adults. However, no matter how friendly he might try to act with his god-father, the two didn't know each other. Harry wanted to handle this delicately, so he couldn't trust it to Sirius.

"Eh, no I haven't heard of you until now. Though I guess that fame does explain everyone's reactions to you." Mr. Granger admitted.

"I have read all about how you defeated You-Know-Who as a baby." The Granger girl – her parents introduced her as Hermione – admitted. "I know there are books about you, but I haven't gotten to them yet. I was hoping to buy them on this excursion."

Harry did his best not to sigh. "I should probably say this now, but any book that describes my life beyond his defeat is inaccurate and just making things up."

Hermione looked outraged at that accusation. "But why would books lie? Why would they print something if it was a lie?" Her parents, at least, just sighed at that.

"How about I explain that along with the story?" Harry said with a smile.

"The story starts some 25 years ago when a psychotic mad-man with homicidal tendencies started terrorizing the wizarding world. He made his name – Voldemort – so feared, that even today, most witches and wizards are afraid to say it, and will cringe at hearing it. Instead, they _still_ call him You-Know-Who or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

"The man's reign of terror lasted for fifteen years, during which he came close to toppling the entire wizarding world. Ten years ago, on 1981, October 31st, he came to my parents' house and killed them. He then tried to use his magic to kill me, but his spell somehow bounced off of me, only leaving me with this scar, and killed him instead. And so ended the reign of terror of the man who's name people are afraid to say ten years later.

"The wizarding world decided to turn me into a hero and their savior. Because obviously the other two exceptional wizards who were willing to lay their lives on the line for the line couldn't have done anything before they died. No, it must have been the one year old baby that bested the Dark Lord.

"As for how my god-father fits into this, shortly before the Dark Lord killed them, my parents were tipped off that said Dark Lord was after them. They went into hiding using a Fidelisu Charm, a spell that makes it so that an area can only be revealed to you by one specific person. If that person doesn't reveal the area to you, you could stand in front of it, and never see it. You could blow up the area, and the protected space would be unharmed. The only way for the Dark Lord to get to my parents, would have been for the secret keeper to divulge that information. Which means, that since he _did_ hunt them down, the secret keeper had betrayed my parents.

"The entire world believed Sirius to be my secret keeper. Consequently, when my parents were killed, they demanded blood, and had him thrown into prison without a trial. A few days ago, I went to visit him to learn why he had betrayed my parents. There, he showed to me that he was actually innocent and it was a man called Peter Pettigrew – who had supposed died heroically trying to capture my god-father after his supposed betrayal – that had actually been my parents' secret keeper.

"As soon as I learned of his innocence, I went to the Minister of Magic, and got him to throw a trial for my godfather. There, we showed his innocence, and now after ten years we are finally reunited."

"That must have been hard on you." Mrs. Granger said as she looked both him and Sirius over. Mr. Granger nodded.

"That isn't right. How could they throw you in prison without a proper trial? That isn't how the law works." Hermione said.

"It was a dark time." Sirius explained. "A man called Barty Crouch at that time built his career on capturing and throwing Death Eaters – servants of You-Know-Who – in prison as fast as he could. Giving them a chance to defend themselves would run counter to his career. And if a few innocents were also caught up in that, well a lot of people were willing to look that over for the sake of their safety."

"But that isn't right." Hermione insisted.

"No it isn't." Harry agreed. "But that is what happened. We can't change the past Hermione. All we can do is insure that it doesn't happen again."

The girls nodded in agreement at that. Still, this was a bit depressing, so Harry decided to change the topic.

"Anyways, as for the books about me. Well, my supposed salvation of wizard kind, people wanted to hear about what happened to me. People want to hear about their heroes performing heroic acts. They don't want to hear about their hero being a regular child. They don't want to hear about how no one knows where that hero is. And so, to satisfy their audiences, writers made up stuff about me. Now that I'm returning to the wizarding world, well, you have no idea how much money I'm getting through awed royalties."

He finished that with a smile. It was almost as if fate was telling him that the coffers of his parents weren't big enough. After that, it was mostly just small talk, followed by shopping with the Grangers.

They ended up visiting the book-store last, and staying there until closing time. Harry didn't have much time to get to know Hermione, but he could tell that she was a bookworm now at least.

* * *

_1991 July 21_

Harry and Sirius had just arrived at a location called 12 Grimmauld Place. Sirius by now had a new wand, and new robes, and had been cleaned up. However, he still looked like he could do well to eat at a buffet every day for months at least.

The two of them had used something called the floo-network – the ancient and noble wizarding art of throwing dust in a fire place, stepping into it, and popping out at another fire place – to get here unmolested.

Both occupants agreed that the house was very dark. It was also a complete mess. As if it was a goth house that hadn't been cleaned in a decade. _Likely, that is _exactly_ what happened._

"Well, it might take a while to clean this place up."

"Hold on." Sirius said, holding up his hand, before yelling "Kreacher!"

"Yes master?" A small, long eared creature asked, as it appeared out of the air with a pop. It looked at the two of them, and then instantly started on a rant about blood-traitors invading the house. Harry just shot Sirius a questioning look.

"My house-elf. He hates me, but magic compels him to obey me."

"Uh, huh." Was what Harry said out loud. In his head though, an evil, maniacal laughter was going on.

"Kreacher, clean up this house now!" Sirius yelled out. The house-elf's cursing suddenly ended as its magic activated, and it was forced to go about cleaning.

"Sirius, can I ask something of you?" Harry ponders.

"Of course pup."

"This might sound strange, but could you treat Kreacher kindly and with respect?"

Sirius just stared at him. "But why? We have always hated each other, and he can't disobey me."

Harry just shook his head. "Why make enemies when you don't have to? I have seen a lot of men – and women – in leadership positions. Even when your subordinates are forced to obey you, you can go a lot further if they respect you, rather than fear or hate you. I'm not asking you to sacrifice anything, and we don't know when we will find the elf's loyalty invaluable or the lack of it to be lethal."

Sirius blinked. "You are so going into Slytherin."

"Pffft. Amateurs. Anyways, I have one more question about house-elves." Harry began.

"I heard that their magic is stronger than that of wizards. Is that true?"

"Yes, but they are tied to a wizarding family. They can't use it in combat without permission, and they can't use it to full without a wand. It is illegal to give non-humans wands." Sirius explained.

"So, we need someone that we can trust, who is able to make magical items..." _Where will we ever find such a person._

Yes, a _very_ maniacal laughter was going on in Harry's mind.

* * *

_1991 July 31_

Today was the day Harry would become emancipated. Harry no longer needed to – he had a decent guardian now – but he wanted access to his parents' manor, and whatever house elves they had.

So far, Sirius and Harry had found two house-elves that had been thrown out by wizarding families. The two happily adopted those elves, the elves were happy to find employment. That their new masters didn't abuse and beat them – the thought made Harry sick due to certain memories – was a plus.

Between the three elves, they cleaned up Grimmauld Place rather quickly. The place was still dark – nothing but a paint job and carving in extra windows would fix that – but at least it was clean now. The only challenge had been a painting of a woman – Sirius's mother – that continued screaming at them, and was utterly indestructible. So Harry had carved out the wall around the painting, and stored it away in a metal holder. And had Sirius cast a silencing spell on said container, and melt it shut.

With the house more or less in order, they were visiting Gringotts. Sirius had wanted to celebrate Harry's birthday, but the boy had insisted that they just spend the day acquiring the Potter mansion. He said they could start celebrating birthdays next year. For now, Sirius should just enjoy being free, rather than be burdened by having to find a gift for Harry.

And so the two of them stood in line at Gringotts, still drawing stares, but none of them intent on killing Sirius.

"Next!" The goblin teller yelled, indicating that it was Harry and Sirius's turn.

"Hello Sir Goblin. I have just turned 11, and as my parents have passed on, I would like to be emancipated." Harry said, handing over the sheet containing his blood test results.

"Very well Mr. Potter. That will be 10 galleons."

Harry quietly handed over the money. The goblin took out a piece of paper, stapled it to the blood test, and stamped it.

"Very well Mr. Potter. You have now been emancipated. By right of inheritance you are now Lord Potter, head of the most Ancient and Noble House of Potter. You also have a seat on the Wizengamot, although it is traditional for one so young to appoint a representative in their place."

"I would like to appoint my god-father Sirius Black as my representative please."

"Sirius Black, do you agree to this?" The goblin asked as if they were discussing tea, rather than a seat on the highest governing body in Magical Britain. Sirius just stared. He had expected something formal, hours of paper-work, lots of questions, etc. What ever the hell happened to bureaucracy?

"I accept." He said solemnly.

"Very well. Mr. Potter, here is the key to your family vault. Your trust fund is already being moved to your family vault. Here is also the address and a paper with the rights to Potter Manor, and the three house-elves that are stationed there. Furthermore, Sirius Black, you are now the representative of House Potter on the Wizengamot. We will hand all the paper-work to your primitive courts so that they can manually review it and write more papers on it."

The goblin said the last part with a scowl.

"Next!"

Sirius and Harry just walked away, stunned by goblin efficiency. Filling out his acceptance letter to Hogwarts had taken more work than this!

"I think I really like goblins."

"You two?"

The two of them then went to find a floo place so that they could floo to Potter Manor, and look over the house that had been Sirius Black's home ever since he ran away from the Black house at sixteen.

* * *

The rest of the summer passed by rather uneventfully.

Sirius explained to Harry how Hogwarts worked, causing Harry to develop a few plans.

Harry met up with a few ex-werewolves, and together they worked out how those plans could be executed. After a while, it was agreed that the execution could start once they boarded the train to Hogwarts.

Other than that, Sirius and Harry spent most of the summer getting to know each other. They had rather conflicting personalities. Sirius was an expressive, impulsive prankster. Harry was also often times impulsive, but he was also often serious and thoughtful, as well as somewhat of a bookworm. However, they were family. Just because they were a bit different didn't mean they couldn't get along.

The two of them spent a good deal of time dueling with one another. It turned out that both of them enjoyed fighting, and Sirius encouraged Harry to develop his talents. After all, the Death Eaters were still out there, and it never hurt to be able to out-duel some greasy-haired asshole that you felt like bullying for some reason.

Sirius also taught spells to Harry, something that was a unique experience to him. He had had teachers before, but not ones that took charge and control of the lessons. He found that now that he didn't have to drive the lessons himself, and ask all the questions – possibly missing ones he didn't think of – he could advance a lot quicker.

By the time September rolled around, Harry was confident he was confident he could handle anything a first year should be able to. Which, he admitted to himself, just guaranteed he would have to face something beyond the requisite capabilities of first years.


	5. Chapter 4: The Train Ride

_**Bakapervert:**_

_I honestly couldn't think of a canon consistent reason. Dumbledore was able to enter Sirius's house while he is the secret keeper, so the secret keeper is able to enter within the charm. Most divine-inspired disasters tend to happen around muggle areas. I would argue that the wand-wizarding world wouldn't be interested in investigating those. And the other community is very good at covering up the reasons why certain areas randomly explode, or are hit by earthquakes, etc._

_**Tsun:**_

_Ah, I agree that the wand itself is a poor weapon. However, it is illegal to magically enchant a gun so that it fires spells for you. For now, Harry wants to appear like he isn't breaking any rules._

_**Wildedge:**_

_Thank you_

_**Redkama:**_

_Lets just say, Harry hasn't displayed his full array of capabilities yet. But yes, he does suck at duels. Duels have this annoying rule that killing and permanent maiming aren't legal..._

_**Terranorth:**_

_Harry believes in second chances. AFTER someone receives punishment for their crimes. And IF they then take actions to make up for their crimes. Otherwise, he is fine with killing when necessary._

_Yeah, I realize it was a bit quick, but in my case I didn't like reading fanfictions where it takes ~10 chapters just to get to Hogwarts first. A lot of the most interesting stuff happens at Hogwarts. As for his reaction to the childhood abuse, that really depends, in my opinion, on how someone is raised. Whether something is embarrassing or not, depends on whether you have been raised to consider it so. Either by your parents, or by your peers. That said, I'm going to admit I'm not very familiar with abuse victims. I'm not one, and I haven't really talked to any, so I don't have any experiences to draw on. There is a very good chance my opinions on how they would behave are completely, and utterly stupid and wrong._

_Who ever said Harry has _any_ friends? He has useful allies and tools. Draco Malfoy makes an excellent tool if molded right. If molded wrong, he will break, but then you can dump him in the trash (aka kill him)._

* * *

**Chapter 4: The Train Ride**

_1991 September 1_

It was nine am, and Harry and Sirius were at the King's Cross train station in London. The train for Hogwarts was supposed to depart at eleven am, so of course Harry had arranged to meet up with his friends at nine. This way, when someone was inevitably late, they still had time to get on the train and find an empty carriage.

Already gathered there were Chann, Neville, and two other ex-werewolf children: Dimentia – a female second year – and Irving – a male second year – and their respective guardians. Strangely enough it was the Grangers that they were waiting for.

_I was sure she would be here early._

"Harry, you owe me 10 galleons." Neville told him.

"Oh, what is this about?" Dimentia asked as Harry handed over the money.

"Me and Harry had a bet as to when the Grangers would arrive. I bet that they would be late, and he said they would be at least five minutes early."

"And what would have happened if they were between four and one minutes early?" Irving asked.

"Simply. No one would have gotten any money." Harry explained with a casual smile. He didn't mind losing the money, since it helped boost Neville's confidence. He _did_ mind being wrong. He was pretty confident he was good at getting a read of people.

"Hey Harry! Sorry we are late!"

He heard a voice and turned around to see a bushy haired girl leading her parents along the train station. Checking the clock on the wall, he noted that they were precisely 1 minute late.

"Sorry." She said again. "We couldn't find the right station. We still can't."

It wasn't surprising. Most people tended to miss station 9 and ¾. Mostly because it wasn't visible.

"Actually, station nine and three quarters is through that wall." He said, pointing to the area between station 9 and station 10. "We run through it to get to the train."

The muggle family looked rather appalled. Truthfully Harry didn't feel comfortable about running head-first into a brick wall either. Every instinct in his body screamed against it.

"Anyways, let me introduce everyone. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Hermione Granger. This is Chann Dark. These two are Dimentia and Irving Croft. Yes, they are twins, though I think both looks and brains went to Dimentia leaving nothing to Irving. Finally this is Neville Longbottom."

Everyone shook hands at the introduction.

"Hello Hermione. Thank you for helping me get money off of Harry." Neville said with a smile. Hermione looked blankly at him.

"These two idiots" Irving explained "decided to bet on when you would arrive. Honestly, they bring shame to the name of all males. I am quite proud to say that unlike these lesser specimen, I am a fine example of the stunning looks, and exemplary behavior that would be expected of gentlemen."

Harry and Neville just shook their heads, while the two ex-were girls laughed.

"Isn't gambling against the rules?" Hermione asked. Apparently she wasn't insulted that they were betting about her. Just about the rule breaking.

Sirius just laughed. "Exactly. These two are way too stuck up. They need to learn to bend the rules every so often."

Hermione made a face at that, but _all_ the parents, including the Grangers and Madam Longbottom nodded at that.

"Now why don't we let the young ones go get themselves a room. I understand Harry has some plans he wants to initiate."

"Plans?" Chann asked. "I knew there was a reason you were asking Irving and I for all those details on Hogwarts." Dimentia continued. "So what is the plan?"

Harry smiled. "Bringing the magic of friendship to Hogwarts."

"If you bring ponies into Hogwarts, I'm jinxing your pants off." Chann warned.

Sirius, Neville, Irving, and Irving's dad performed the incredibly mature act of wolf whistling at that.

"Harry, looks like you are being propositioned." Sirius joked.

"So ponies are what turn you on Chann?" Irving asked. "Harry you should remember that. Every time you want a good snogging, just show her a po- AH!" Irving suddenly yelled as Chann started firing spells off at him.

The girls just laughed at that, while the guys scowled for about three seconds, before Harry grabbed her arm and stopped her.

"Please don't kill him. He is our only Hufflepuff. I need them if I want to flood Hogwarts in friendship."

"Oh, thank you. I'm so happy to hear that I'm just a tool to manipulate the Hufflepuffs." Irving said sarcastically.

"If you are complaining, I can let go of Chann." Harry said, pointing at the manifestation of pure murder in the shape of a cute 11 year old girl.

"You know what? I'm happy being a tool of friendship creation." Irving said with a sigh.

"Well then, shall we go?" Dimentia said, sounding disappointed that her brother wasn't about to be assaulted some more.

With a simple goodbye to their respective guardians, the six kids grabbed their luggage, and quickly passed through the brick wall. On the other side was a large, steam engine train. It looked like something from 1 century ago. Which, by wizarding standards meant it was _extremely_ modern. Probably developed by muggle-borns who were accused of rebelling against good old tradition.

"Well, this looks refreshingly advanced for wizards." Chann said, voicing Harry's thoughts.

* * *

An hour and a half later, there were two compartments near the back filled by people. One contained Harry's friends, and the other the people he had temporarily gathered for this operation. Namely, the four Captains of the quidditch teams – a wizard sport played on brooms – and the Weasley teams and their best friend Lee Jordan who happened to be the school's top pranksters.

"So Harry, why have you gathered us all here today?" Oliver Wood, Captain of the Griffindor Quidditch team asked.

"Yeah, some of us have friends to meet. And there are people here I don't get along with." Marcus Flint, the Captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team added.

The two team Captains glared at one another. The two of them exemplified in their attitudes for each others, the attitudes of their respective houses for one another. In other words, they hated each other.

"Calm down. I need the assistance of all four of you to convince the heads of something. Don't worry this won't take more than a few minutes?"

"And why are those three here?" Marcus asked, pointing at the three panksters.

"Sorry about that. I want to ask them something after we are done here."

"And you trust them to keep this secret?"

"If the four of you agree to my suggestion, it is quite possible half of Hogwarts will know about it by the end of the day. I haven't limited the group for sake of secrecy, just to make things faster."

"Okay, so what is it that you want?" The Hufflepuff Captain Gregory Friendstein asked.

"I want to suggest increasing the number of teams to 6 from 4. Here is a table with an outline of how and when match-ups could happen. It would allow for 10 games to be played, nearly doubling the number of games people can observe."

He said as he put out a sheet, identifying the plan. It would involve having 2 brackets of 3 teams each, where each team played against both teams in the bracket. The best 2 would go on, creating a bracket of the best 4, that would play elimination style games, including a match for the 2 losers.

"That is nice, but what house would get 2 teams?" Oliver Wood asked the obvious problem.

"No house. I was thinking of making it so that teams could be inter-house."

"But then what house points from the games?" That was Marcus.

"There wouldn't be any. Tell me, do you only play Quidditch because of house pride? Because of the points they bring your house? Or do you play Quidditch because it is Quidditch? I'm not going to lie, this will completely separate the Quidditch games from the house system. However, it should make the games more competitive, with better games."

"More competitive, how?" That would be – actually Harry wasn't sure of her name – the Ravenclaw captain.

"Well, say one house doesn't have anyone who would make a good seeker. And say the two most talented seekers are from the same house. In the current system, one house is forced to have a bad keeper, while the second best seeker in the school can't play. With my suggestion, rather than the best from each house playing, the best from the entire school will play. The skill level of each team should increase."

"And what would you gain from this?" Marcus flint asked.

"A larger number of more interesting Quidditch matches to watch? Isn't that a good enough motive on its own?" Marcus nodded at that. He didn't seem to believe it. But then, Harry guessed that Marcus knew why Harry was really doing this. And honestly, this would serve Slytherin the best overall.

"Well, I agree to this." Oliver began, only for the other three to say "so do I". "And I will bring it up with Professor McGonnagal today at the castle. However, we still need to convince Professor Dumbledore."

"I will convince Dumbledore if you four can convince the heads of your houses." Harry stated with confidence. While he could always call in a favor, if he understood Dumbledore correctly, he could just convince the old man this was the right thing to do.

The four Captains nodded, and walked out to get back to their friends. And possibly discuss this suggestion with them or their respective teams. Harry did hand them A few papers explaining the plans in a possibly way to handle recruiting in more details.

"So" Twin A began.

"Harrikins" Twin B continued.

"Didn't know"

"That was your name."

"I didn't know either last time we met."

"Aye. We"

"Remember."

"So"

"What did you"

"Want with us"

_God, that way of talking is annoying._

"I heard that the three are the best pranksters at the school."

"That we are." Lee Jordan agreed.

"I was wonder if you guys could pull off a large number of pretty impressive pranks."

"Oh, what"

"Did you"

"Have in"

"Mind?"

"Simply" Harry explained. "I want to break down the adversity between the various houses. If I wanted to insure that as many wizards became Dark Wizards as possible, I would take every witch or wizard with ambition, put them in a single group, and label them as evil, so that the majority can hate them and view them as enemies. This would drive them to succeed, as well as drive them to crush everyone else in the process, because the constant hate they are subjected to will make them hate everyone else.

"If I was feeling particularly malicious, I would have them labeled as evil when they were little children. Say, 11. And then make it blatantly obvious it was done for a ridiculous and arbitrary reason. Like, say, being thrown in there by a talking hat.

"You may notice that this is in fact, how the Hogwarts sorting system works. Sadly, I can do nothing about that. But I can do my damnest best to make sure that house-rivalries are broken that. That Slytherin is not viewed as evil by everyone, so that people in that house aren't forced to become evil. The best way to do that, is to develop inter-house friendships."

"Is that why"

"You want"

"Quidditch teams"

"To be independent"

"Of the"

"Houses?"

"Yes." Harry answered the twins.

"But where do pranks fit into this?" Lee Jordan asked.

"People tend to became friends more easily when they are united in adversity against a common enemy or problem. For example, because everyone hates Slytherin, the other houses can act as friends at times. In this case, I want the common problem to be pranks.

"I need you to commit pranks on students that force them to overcome problems together. Forcing Slytherin and Griffindor to work together to get through these pranks that are propping up out of no where done by no-one-knows-who should create friendships. Or at least respects. That way, the next time a Dark Lord pops up, these students will be less comfortable siding with this Dark Lord against their friends."

"Harrikins"

"We don't know"

"If you are"

"Very Light"

"Or incredibly Dark."

"All I'm trying to do is make friends. And save a quarter of the school at the same time." Harry said with a smile.

"But for such"

"Dark motives"

"So are you three in?"

"Year long"

"Pranks"

"For a reason"

"That our parents"

"Would approve of?"

"How could you"

"Ask that!"

"Of course"

"We are in!"

"Right, I'm in as well." Less Jordan asserted.

"Well, quite frankly I'm not very good with pranks. However, my godfather was an expert at them when he was in school. He suggested that something called the Marauder's Map would help. Last he knew, it was in Filch's office."

At the mention of the map, Twin B reached into his back-pack, and pulled out an old scroll and lay it on the table. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

The scroll turned into a map, with a few small dots moving on it, with names next to them.

"We already"

"Have it."

"Still Harrikins"

"How do you"

"Know of the"

"Map?"

Harry shrugged. "My godfather, Sirius, was called Padfoot. My father, was called Prongs. The two of them, along with Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew created the map."

The Marauder's Map was a map created by the four that displayed a complete map of Hogwarts. Or at least the parts of Hogwarts that the four had mapped out. It also showed anyone traveling at those locations. This tended to make pranking easier, since you could track your targets from a broom closet across the castle if you felt like it.

"We would get to work with one of the Marauders?" Thank the gods it was Lee Jordan asking the question, and not the twins going back to back.

"If you accept, yes. Since I wouldn't be participating, I will help you set up communications with him, and that will be it. I won't know what pranks you will be doing, and I won't have a say in them. Which of course means I'm also a valid target for them."

Harry said with a smile. He didn't like being the target of pranks, but he didn't want to appear special. _Let me rephrase that. I don't want to appear _too_ special._

"Wicked." _God damn it Jordan. Are you trying to join their short phrase patterns?_

"We"

"Accept."

"Great. This mirror in a metal box" Harry said handing them what looked like a key-less cellphone "will let you talk to him. All you have to say is tap it with a wand, and say the nickname of the target. Sirius's is Padfoot. Those are my custom creations, and there are only five in existence so far. Though I'm considering mass-marketing the ever loving crap out of them eventually.

"To set your nickname, just tap your device, and say 'setting nickname', followed by whatever your nickname is. Once again, I don't need to know what you guys call yourselves. Well, see you guys around. Oh, by the way the devices are called magica-phones."

Harry said as he handed them three of the magica-phones, and then left the compartment. The trio were also leaving to go find their friends, and probably plot pranks with padfoot.

_Great. Now I just need to figure out half a dozen more ways to build inter-house friendship. And talk to every single head of house about it. Hopefully none of them hate me for some juvenile reason, like having been bullied by more father, and being in love with my mother._

Perhaps he could abuse his fame somehow for this? Of course, sad as it was, it would need to be Slytherin who made the first move. Oh, if only some insecure jerk from a well-known racist family picked a fight with him on the train ride. That would make things so much easier.

* * *

"Hey Harry, you are back!" Chann called as Harry entered the adjacent compartment.

Currently the compartment contained Neville on on one, side Hermione and Chann on the other side. The older ones had gone off ahead to find their friends, leaving only the first years. Harry sat down next to Neville across from Chann, and prepared to procrastinate on his plans.

Before he could though, a door opened and a Weasley – the Ron if Harry remembered correctly – entered their compartment. The boy looked around until he spotted Harry, and gave himself a nod that probably no one in the group missed before introducing himself.

"Hey, all of the other compartments are full. You mind if I sit with you guys?" He asked with a straight face while, through the open door, Harry could see a completely open compartment right behind the boy.

"Sure. I'm Harry Potter. I believe we met at the bank? This is Neville Longbottom whom you also met at the bank. The two ladies are Hermione Granger, and Chann Dark." Harry said, introducing them in order.

Neville shook Ron's hand. Hermione said "a pleasure". "What she said. And you are?" That was Chann.

"Ron Weasley." The boy replied.

"Well Ron, I suggest you stop looking at Harry like a piece of steak. That kind of action is only fun to watch when both boys are hot, and you, well, aren't." This had Ron blushing red. "Also, although Harry swings that way, he is already taken."

"I'm not on both accounts." Harry protested, while Neville scooted aside slightly. Hermione for some reason looked very interested.

"Two words." Chann continued. "Doni Salvatore?"

"Who is Doni?" Hermione asked a bit too eagerly.

"The other boy in this picture. _Engorgio."_ Chann said as she pulled out a small picture, and enlarged it to the size of a poster. Before he even looked at it, Harry had used a spell to close the door, forcing Ron inside. And then he looked at the picture, just as Hermione let out a fangirl scream.

The picture was of a time less than a year ago, after a tough fight the two had fought together. Doni was missing his shirt, while the lower half of Harry's white shirt had been ripped off. What remained clung tightly to him, outlining his abs clearly due to all the sweat. The sweat had even made it mostly see through. The two boys were in a sitting position, their backs against one another, and were sleeping peacefully. There was a bird sleeping on each of their heads, and pairs of various small animals sleeping around them. They happened to be sleeping in a rose bed.

"Why isn't the picture moving?" Was all Ron could get out.

"Where the hell did you get that?" Harry demanded.

"Princess Alece of course. She gave me a copy of her entire album. I made plenty of copies of it." Chann responded happily. Harry groaned in despair.

"There is an entire album of pictures like that?" Hermione asked with glee.

"Of course. The two of them have had a _very_ long relationship."

"What is going on? We detected fangirling in this... Oh. My. God." Two girls had burst into the room, and one started speaking at the same moment. Ron, Harry, and Neville plugged their ears on instincts before a pair of screeches not meant to be heard by any creature other than teenage girls reverberated across the compartment.

Harry quickly used a spell to close the door, then lock it, while taking in these two new appearances.

"Hi, my name is Daphne Greengass" a brown haired girl said, and this is my friend "Tracey Davis" she said, pointing at her blond friend. "Could I have a copy of that poster? It is so gorgeous."

"Sure, I have plenty of copies for everyone. Though you need to cast the enlargement charm yourself, as well as any spells to make it move." Chann replied as she took out a few copies of the picture. Every girl in the compartment took one.

"I'm going to murder Alice one of these days." Harry muttered.

"Eh, Alice?" Tracey asked.

"The one who got us this picture supposedly. I'm Hermione Granger, and this is Chann Dark. Supposedly there is an entire album of pictures like this."

"Oh. My. God. Can I have one of those albums?" Tracey inquired.

"Sure. But you will owe me an Album of similar quality down the line." Chann said with a smile. _And she says that _I'm_ a Slytherin. At least _I_ have standards!_

"Hello ladies. I'm Neville Longbottom, this is Ron Weasley, and the deviant that is making all of you go wild is Harry Potter." Neville said with a smile.

"Oh. My. God. That makes these pictures even more valuable. Pictures of Harry Potter alone would be valuable enough if we could find his fans to pawn them off to. Hey Harry, could you sign some of these?" Tracey asked innocently.

Harry just groaned. "I would rather not confuse the school into thinking I'm gay."

"But the pictures-" Hermione began.

"You just keep telling yourself that pretty boy." Chann told him. "So, do you girls want to join us in our compartment? If so just give your luggage to the boys, and they will put it away." The devil said with an innocent smile.

* * *

For the next half an hour, Neville, Ron, and Harry bonded over suffering through the horrors of being subjected to feminine gossip together. In that time, they didn't learn _anything_ about each other, but by the end of it they were like old war veterans that had suffered through horrible battles together. On the bright side, after this, both boys believed that Harry wasn't gay...

_Now if Ron wasn't so incredibly dull. As things stand, not sure how long this temporary alliance will last._

They were eventually saved from the gossip by someone trying to open the compartment door. By this point, Harry had _thoroughly_ incinerated the ever loving crap out of the offending poster out of existence. Consequently he was all too happy to unlock the door with a simple _Alomomora_ and let the intruders enter.

"I heard that Harry Potter was in this compartment." A boy demanded.

The boy was slender with sleek white-blond hair, cold gray eyes, a pale complexion, and rather sharp, pointed features. He also had two minions standing behind him, that to the non-combatants in the room would likely look like miniature gorillas. To Harry, they looked like a pair of fat boys that relied on fists they weren't proficient with to solve problems.

"Hello sir, I'm Harry Potter." Harry said as he introduced himself, and showed his scar. In this time the boy had scanned through the entire compartment and looked over all of them. He stared intently at Harry Potter.

"Harry Potter." He repeated.

"Jeez, does every boy have to look at Harry like a piece of steak? Though unlike Ron you are hot, so it is fine for you to act on those desires. Just so long as you let us observe the juicier scenes."

_Chaaaaaaaaaaaannn!_ Harry yelled inside of his mind.

All of the girls in the compartment giggles, while the white haired boy blushed red. His pair of trained apes snicked slightly, and also took a step back from him.

"Please ignore the gossip factory. So what can I help you good sir?"

"I'm Draco Malfoy." Ron glared at hearing that. "And that red-head must be another Weaseley. My father told me all about you guys. That the only thing your family can do is produce more children that they can't feed."

"If you are here to insult us and make us feel bad about ourselves, I hate to break it to you, but the girls are doing a much better job of it."

"I take it you haven't heard of my family? The Malfoys are the wealthiest, and one of the most influential wizarding families in all of Britain. I came to give you advice. You should pick your allies carefully Harry. Even amongst pure-blood families, there is the quality, and there are the Weaseleys. Lets not even get into the mud-bloods."

Ron's and Neville's hands tightened on their wands, while Hermione looked affronted. Tracey and Daphne had their wands ready, but mostly to defend themselves, not attack. Harry placed his hands on those of the two other boys, and stopped them from attacking, a polite smile on his face. Chann, just glanced at him, and then gulped.

"Sorry, but I was raised by what you would call a muggle. A man born to two non-magical parents, that didn't have an ounce of magical talent in his blood. He was aware of wizards, but considered the entire culture to be a bunch of incompetent whining hippies. Considering that, I didn't actually get to learn much of your culture. Could you help with that?"

Everyone in the compartment that wasn't Harry or Chann looked confused. The three intruders, Draco, Minion A, and Minion B looked rather upset though.

"Incompetent whining hippies?" Minion A stuttered out.

"Those were his words yes. Apparently he found the power-level of wizards didn't live up to what he would consider barely worth acknowledging the existence of. He claimed that during the war against the Dark Lord, he considered, quote just strolling in and ripping snake face to shreds end quote, but expected the fight to be rather boring and not worth the trouble of getting on a plane to travel to England. He used to tell me stories about how hilarious he found it that the hippies were cowered by such a weakling and his moronic henchmen."

"What? How dare he? Who is this man!" Draco yelled in rage, demanding the last.

"His name is Sasha Dejanstahl Voban de la Marquis. I think he more or less dared, because no one ever corrected him, or proved him wrong by, say, demonstrating their strength to him. He is a Marquis in Hungary, and is used to looking down on those that have a lesser rank of nobility than him. Which he considers to be the entire wizarding world."

Okay, that was completely, 100% accurate. It is just, that unlike the implications, the rank wasn't "Marquis", but "Campione". _Everyone_ was considered lower ranked than a Campione, and fuck their birth.

Hermione looked confused as to what Harry was doing. Ron, Neville, Daphne, and Tracey stared at him in horror. It looked to them like he was trying to get his adopted father killed. _Oh, if only it was that easy._

"I think our fathers will have to pay him a visit then."

Harry did his best to look horrified. "Draco, please don't. You don't know what it is like to grow up without a father." Draco and minions started to snicker. "I don't want to make you experience that."

Draco paled in rage. "You think my father would lose to a mere muggle?"

"He may be a muggle, but he is rather experienced at fighting. Please don't take the cowards comment personally. He considers everyone who's tactic isn't frontal assault to be a coward, because he himself would never result to such lowly, plebeian techniques."

"You should have considered your words more carefully Potter. I will owl my father about this. I hope you enjoy reading about the death of your adoptive father within two days from now."

"I would be in your debt if you managed to get him killed." Harry said calmly. "I hate the old man."

Draco stared. "So you would join our side if we can kill him?"

Harry stood up and slowly raised his hand out at Draco. "Deal."

"Deal." Draco said, taking and shaking the hand. "See you around Potter. I hope you are prepared to become my ally."

"Why just yours? Surely it would be better if all of your father's friends and their families joined this alliance? Just imagine your father's pride if you managed to create and lead an alliance of all children from those families after just two days at Hogwarts."

At this point, five people were glaring daggers at him. Chann, was doing her best to maintain a neutral face.

"Just remember to make sure everyone understands this. I am _not_ at fault for any injuries or deaths that might occur. Your family can have both the credit and the responsibility. After all, that is the cost of being a _worthy_ leader. You take the credit for a success, but are also responsible for any failures."

"Of course." Draco responded again. He didn't necessarily agree with what made a great leader, but he saw no risks here. "As I said, see you around Potter."

"See you around Malfoy, Minion A, and Minion B."

"They are called Crabbe and Goyle. Though I like your names. Well, good-bye." With that, Draco led his minions out of the compartment. Harry quickly closed it, locked it, and created a temporary privacy ward in it.

"What the hell is wrong with you!" Ron yelled, as soon as Harry was no longer waving around his wand. "You are supposed to be the champion of the Light! You aren't supposed to join the Dark families!"

"Yes Harry. I thought you were a nice person. I didn't know you were so horrible." Neville agreed.

Harry just shrugged. "Whether I'm the Champion of the Light or not, isn't up to me to decided. Although I really don't see how a) you two think I am proposing to Chann and b) why me and her getting married would disqualify me from the position."

The four pure-bloods – who weren't Chann – stared at him in confusion until Hermione clarified. "Chann's family name is Dark. I think it might be better to use the terms Good and Evil."

"Not quite." Harry disagreed. "Light isn't always good. I'm perfectly capable of killing someone with healing magic, which is considered a pure-light ability. You can also use the Dark Arts for the good of all."

"That still doesn't imply why you would ally yourself with the children of the servants of You-Know-Who!" Ron yelled.

"Or why you would need to get your old man killed in the process." Tracey added on. "Just because he isn't your blood relative doesn't mean he isn't your father for raising you."

Harry and Chann couldn't help it. They burst out laughing at that one. It took them a good five minutes before they recovered enough to speak.

"Sorry. It is just that the idea of Sasha having the slightest chance of dying from something like this. The idea is just so funny." Chann clarified.

"To be fair, the old man would love it if these attackers were a danger to him. His _only_ entertainment is fights that have a chance of getting him killed. And he is always complaining of being bored." Harry added on.

"You honestly think a mere muggle could take on a horde of servants of You-Know-Who from the war?" Daphne asked confused.

"Most muggles? No. Sasha? Hell yes. Think of this as giving those servants their second chance. After all, people do deserve a second chance."

"A second chance?" Hermione asked confused.

"In the war against Voldemort" – 4 people cringed – "they committed various atrocities. However, due to claims of being reformed, they got away without punishment. This is their second chance. If they refuse to go after Sasha, they prove that at least they are on the pathway to redemption. Though they have likely gotten lazy along the way. If they do attack Sasha though, that means they wasted their second chance, and likely won't survive to get a third chance."

Harry explained.

"I can't tell if you are an idiot, or a natural Slytherin." Daphne said with a sigh.

"Slytherin." That was Chann.

"Idiot." That was Ron – which Harry found a bit offensive – Neville, Hermione, and Tracey.

"Hey, I'm offended by that. From what I can tell most Slytherins are complete amateurs. You are talking to the master of manipulation."

"Still, even if you are right." Hermione said. "I don't get why you would need to get them killed."

"Hermione, those that will be assaulting Sasha are servants of Lord Voldemort. These are people who have considered me an enemy they want either dead, or as a servant, since I was a year old. I will need to deal with them eventually. Malfoy was just the first chance I got, and I took it.

"Besides, most of there children have great influence in Slytherin because of the influence of their families. Do you have any idea how many people have suffered because these idiots brought about the misconception that _every_ Slytherin is evil? How many people were forced down the path of evil because they were forced to live in a dorm dominated by these families?

"Most people going into Slytherin aren't evil. I want to ensure that at least as many people coming out of Slytherin aren't people. I want to ensure that Slytherin is no longer painted as the house of evil, as "the enemy". To save the innocent, these families are in the way. I need to break their influence as soon as possible."

"Nice speech. How long did you practice that in front of the mirror?" Chann asked with a smile.

Daphne and Tracey had been nodding along. Neville and Hermione seemed to be contemplative.

"Actually I was making it up as I went." Harry admitted. Though it was time to pre-write some speeches.

"Slytherin isn't evil?!" Ron yelled. "Of course they are evil! Everyone in there is evil. Every single Dark Wizard since Salazar Slytherin has been from that house! Every single person who enters Slytherin is a Dark Wizard!"

"Ron, the only qualification to enter Slytherin is to be cunning and ambitious when you are eleven years old." Harry explained in a calm voice. "That is the _only_ unique trait to members of Slytherin. Are you saying anyone who has cunning and ambition is evil?"

"Of course! You-Know-Who had been cunning and ambition. So did all his servants! That is why the war went so badly. They used cunning to get away with their crimes." Ron reasoned, but no one seemed to be agreeing with him.

"So, Dumbledore is a Dark Wizard. Might I suggest not going to Hogwarts then? Surely you don't want to study with a Dark Wizard as a headmaster. Although considering this would make Amelia Bones the head of the DMLE a Dark Wizard, I would actually suggest leaving the country." Harry said with a smile.

"Who said those two were evil?"

"You did." Daphne explained. "They are politicians with power. To get there, they would need both cunning and ambition. You claimed those two traits make someone evil. Therefore you claimed Dumbledore and Ms. Bones are Dark Wizards."

Ron glared. "That isn't what I said."

"Actually Ron" Hermione interrupted. "It is."

"It might not be what you think, but that is what your words mean. Either you fail at logic, or your mastery of English is lacking. Logic, by the way, is this method of reasoning where you don't just make up opinions. Rather you base your opinion on things like facts, and the demonstration of possessing at minimum the brain of a five year old."

"Don't treat me like an idiot!" Ron yelled.

"You just claimed that one fourth of all Hogwarts students are evil, and will be evil all their lives. And there isn't anything they or anyone else can do to change this. Because when they were eleven years old, a _talking hat said so_. One, yes, that _is_ idiotic. Two, you don't get to complain about being insulted after insulting that many people."

"Who said anything about a talking hat?" Ron asked confused.

"Ah right. The sorting is supposed to be a secret. See, the Hogwarts sorting is this complex ceremony where they place a talking hat on your head, and it yells out the name of your house. Somehow you are giving enough weight to this hat to consider it an omniscient evil finding device. And believing that some people have an _inevitable fate_ to be evil. Forgive the phrase ladies, but that is _fucking bullshit_.

"Until people commit a crime, they always have a chance to turn their lives around. Good isn't the act of sitting back and condemning these people. That is Neutral, bordering on Evil. Good is when you work to save those around you. Either from physical dangers, or from the threat of falling to evil.

"In condemning the entire house as evil, you are no better than those who condemn others for their birth."

"How dare you!" Ron yelled.

"Easily." Harry said with a smile. "Stated the truth is very easy."

"How dare you putting me in the same boat as those Slytherins!" Ron yelled again.

"As I said, easily. You are acting exactly like the worst of them, the ones that are actually evil."

"Take that back!" Ron yelled, drawing his wand. Only for it to fly out of his hand, and into Harry's, with a simple _expelliarmus_.

"No. You don't want to called evil? _Stop acting evil!_ I have no intention of stopping on this goal. You can either be my friend and help me, sit on the side and observe, or oppose me and be destroyed as my enemy. It is your choice. However, if you intend to oppose me, I will ask you to leave the compartment."

"Ron, what Harry says does make sense." Neville stated.

"Indeed, while he could state it better, it is logically accurate." Hermione asserted.

"My family has been in Slytherin since we were founded." That was Daphne. "I don't appreciate having my entire family called evil for no reason either. If you won't take back that insult, I will also insist that you leave Weaseley."

"I'm with Daphne on this." Finally that was Tracey. Chann didn't feel like dignifying the boy with words.

Ron glared around him at that. "You are all bloody insane."

"Of course we are. We are witches and wizards. We are required to leave behind our sanity at King's Cross." Chann chimed in happily. "So what is your choice?"

"I'm leaving. The Weasleys have always been a Light family. Harry, Neville, your parents would be disappointed in you two. If you had them at least."

Neville tried to point his wand at Ron, but Harry stopped him. Instead, he pocked his wand, and then placed Ron's on the bench, before slowly getting up. Somewhere in the yelling, Ron had gotten up and was starting at him. Harry simply grabbed the boy with one hand, and raised him a foot into the air, reinforcing his muscles with magic to the point where this was downright trivial.

With a simple spell, the air went cold in the room, as Harry glared into Ron's eyes. "Leave. _Now_." He said the words in a cold, monotone voice. He didn't even raise his voice. He stated the demand as a fact, and then let Ron go. Ron tried to glare, but found he couldn't look Harry in the eye.

Harry's name of Balor, had been given to him after one of Sasha's authorities; the man wasn't very creative. Usage of the ability changed Sasha's eyes to a demonic yellow. With that, anyone or anything he stared at, he could turn into salt statues. Every since Harry had learned that, he had done his best to learn what those eyes looked like. Consequently, while he couldn't replicate the salt-statue creation, he could give a stare, demonic eyes and all, that made it look like one was staring into the pits of hell themselves. It was just at trivial illusion cantrip after all.

Even though the illusion lasted only a moment, it was enough for weak-willed targets. They would be too scared to look back into Harry's eyes to confirm the illusion. So of course it didn't work on anyone but bumbling idiots. Like, Malfoy and his minions. Or Ron Weasley. Or a few others of no real consequence.

Ron just grabbed his wand and bag, and scampered out of there as fast as he could.

"What did you do?" Daphne asked.

"I looked him in the eyes. I spent a _lot _of time learning my adoptive father's glare. Mine isn't anywhere near his level though. If it was, Ron would be dead from that glare. And no, that isn't hyperbole."

"No, Harry isn't joking." Chann said. And then shivered. "His father is fucking scary."

After that, they went back to small talk. The privacy wards went down, and when a woman came around with candy Harry and Neville bought the entire cart together, before sharing it all with the group.

That seemed to cheer up the group. Apparently the best way to get over a depressing topic was lots of sugar plus silliness. Although Harry wished the girls didn't start a betting pool on how long until new photos of Harry started surfacing now that he wasn't around Doni anymore.

* * *

It was when they were only an hour or so from Hogwarts that Hermione suddenly started to freak out.

"Oh god. I forgot to study on the way here." She cried out in concern.

All of them just stared at her. "Study? Why the hell would you want to do that?" Chann asked.

"I have only read all of my text-books three times. What if that isn't enough? What if I'm not prepared?" Hermione continued to worry. The scary part was, this wasn't hidden bragging. She was genuinely concerned.

"Hermione, no one normal studies at all before they get to school." Neville told her. "You will be fine. You will probably be ahead of everyone."

"Well everyone except Harry." Chann corrected. "What? He is no where near normal _or_ sane. Then again, he has been practicing with a wand since he was six years old. The boy is crazy."

"Eh? Six? But Ollivander won't give you a wand until you are about to go to school." Daphne protested.

"I got it from Gregorovitch, a German wand maker. Everyone but the British consider him the best."

"Wait. But I thought you said your adoptive father was a muggle." Hermione pointed out the logical flaw.

"You need to stop thinking of Sasha as normal. He makes Harry look perfectly sane, rational, and normal." Chann responded.

"Yeah, he might have been unable to use the magic himself, but he wasn't above getting a few ghosts to teach the spells for me." Harry said with a frown. "Though said ghosts _were_ rather unmotivated. Mostly it was self-training. As for the actual book reading, I only started in July. And I spent most of the time getting to know my god-father. I have only read all of the books once."

"Damn it Daphne. You _finally_ make friends, and two of them are god damn insane." Tracey commented.

"Hey, I'm offended by that! I'm just as crazy as they are!" Chann protested.

That broke the tension, making them all laugh.

"Seriously though, we need to get dressed. Both of you boys, get out." Daphne told them bluntly.

"Hold on. The compartment across from here is empty, so let me and Neville get our robes, and we can get dressed in there." Harry said as he started going through his stuff. Neville followed suit, and the two boys got their robes before they left to get dressed.

* * *

As the train finally arrived at Hogwarts, the group left the train, scrambling into a massive pile of people.

"I'm noting a frightening lack of both hogs and warts. Are you sure we aren't at the wrong place?" Harry asked.

"I'm pretty sure Hogwarts is just a name." Neville informed him.

"Yeah, but who would name a place Hogwarts if it didn't have _either _of those things?"

"The four founders?"

"Touche."

"Fi'st yea's this way! Fi'st yea's this way!" a loud noise rang out before they could continue their banter.

Looking that way, they noticed a gigantic man, about twice the size of a regular person and three times as wide. He had a long mane of shaggy black hair, and a beard that covered most of his face. He appeared to be wearing a large, worn coat, and standing by a lake, yelling for first years.

The group of 6 friends/allies/acquaintances gathered over by the lake, where they were instructed to get into boats in groups of four. The four girls, desperate to prove as many stereotypes as they could about girls today – probably so she could then _disprove_ them starting tomorrow in Chann's case – entered the same boat together.

Neville and Harry took a boat together, and ended up being joined by Draco, and a tall, thin, and weakly built boy that identified himself as Theodore Notte.

"So Harry, if you are going to be our ally soon, why are you sitting with Longbottom. I didn't notice before, but one of the girls you were sitting with was a muggle-born wasn't she? Why would you associate yourself with such low-lives?"

Draco asked with as much arrogance as he could muster. Theodore nodded along, while Neville scowled.

"Tell me Draco. What are the two traits that the sorting hat looks for in Slytherins?" Harry asked innocently.

"Cunning, ambition, and blood-purity." Theodore replied.

"Actually, half-bloods are able to get into Slytherin. All the hat looks for is cunning and ambition." Harry corrected.

"I don't see what this has to do with anything." Draco growled.

"Simple. What you are doing, of declaring a group to be your enemies, and uniting in hatred of them, that isn't cunning. Do you know who does that? Monkeys. And I don't mean this in the metaphorical, 'I'm going to call everyone that behaves this way a monkey' matter. I mean that actual, real life monkeys establish dominance in their packs by finding other monkeys to oppress, and bond over the bullying of. I'm a human Draco. I like to think of myself as being better than animals. I am not satisfied with behaving like an animal.

"Although, to be honest, what you are doing is worse than what monkeys do. Monkeys at least choose the weakest in the pack to bully, and only bully a small minority. The leader of the pack gathers the vast majority together at the cost of a small group. Blood-purists on the other hand, they _openly_ declare the majority to be their enemies. And it isn't even the weakest majority. Some who might be the most talented are in that group.

"I don't intend to make an enemy of the majority of the school just so I can feel good about myself. That is utterly stupid. That is the kind of behavior I would expect of the stereotypical Gryffindor. The stupidest of that house. Are you a Gryffindor Malfoy? Notte? Or do you two have the brains to be Slytherins?"

Well, Harry was certainly getting stared at.

"You really believe that blood traitors and mud-bloods can be better than pure-bloods?" Theodore growled out.

"You don't have to believe me now. Just think over what I said, especially after my adoptive father slaughters anyone sent to attack him. If you do manage to get him defeated, I will admit that I was wrong. Though I would prefer you not send anyone against him. I just know I will be held responsible for all the pure-blooded hotheads that die in the assault."

"Listen you damn idiot!" Theodore yelled, grabbing Harry's collar. "There is no way my father would lose to a mere muggle! There is no way out of the pure-bloods would. Once we kill that miserable speck that raised you, I will make you apologize to us publicly."

"Sure." Harry smiled. "If you pull it off I will publicly apologize for what I said, right in the Great Hall. During lunch time. However, if you fail, you will give up this pure-bloodist bullshit, and do your best o convince everyone as well."

"Done". Draco said. They shook on it.

"I guess we will be working together as allies in a few days, no matter what happens." Harry said with a smile.

"You all are bloody crazy." Neville muttered.

"Of course we are. Every great man is crazy to one degree or another. So you guys want to convince all the other first years that the sorting involves fighting a troll? And you are sorted into your house based on how you attack before you are inevitably hospitalized?"

Neville, Draco, and Theodore glanced at each other before shaking their heads.

"Nah, would be fun, but we would lose too much respect." Draco explained.

"Oh well."

* * *

After a while they reached the shore of the lake. All four had been in thought and had missed the supposedly-impressive view of the castle that was supposed to awe them all.

The doors to the castle opened, and a witch that Harry recognized as Professor Minerva McGonnagal exited.

"Evenin' Professo'. These ah' this yea's batch o' fir'st years." Hagrid said.

McGonnagal just nodded. "Thank you Hagrid. Come along everyone."

With that, she turned and lead them through the castle. There were overly large corridors, built to impressive at the cost of security, travel time, and convenience. All the paintings on the walls were alive, and interacting with each other, or waving at the students. Some of the stairs seemed to move as well, because, well, Harry wasn't sure why anyone chose to do that.

Eventually she stopped the group of first years in front of a pair of gigantic doors, and turned on them.

"Hello everyone, and welcome to Hogwarts. Shortly you will enter the dining hall and will be sorted into your houses. Your houses will be like your families for your stay here at Hogwarts. The four houses are Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff. Every positive action you take will earn you points for your houses, and every rule you break will lose your houses points. At the end of the year the house with the most points will earn the incredibly prestigious House Cup.

"None of the houses are better than the others. Great witches and wizards have come from all of the houses. Wherever you are sorted, remember to hold pride in your new families. Well, I will be calling you in in a moment."

With that, she left to enter the great hall and go take care of... something. Maybe inform the Headmaster that the first years were here? Of course if there magic couldn't detect a horde of first years, that was just bloody sad.

Slowly the group of first years started discussing where everyone thought they would be sorted, or what the sorting process involved. Harry just ignored it, and tried to take in the place.

"Oh, bloody hell. More ghosts." He muttered when he noticed a pair of ghosts enter through a wall, and float above the first years. A girl screamed, and some people paled. The ghosts seemed to be discussing giving a person called "Peeves" another chance.

"Hello sir ghost, madam ghost." Harry said to them politely.

"Oh, my. Hello there." The female ghost said. "New first years? I do hope to see some of you in Hufflepuff. It was my old house you know."

"First years, please come." McGonnagal said at that moment as the doors burst open, and the group marched into the "Great Hall" as it was called. The ceiling looked like the night sky. Hermione explained eagerly that it had been enchanted that way; she had read it in _Hogwarts: A History_. There were five tables in the hall. Four long-ones parallel to each other, where each house was seated. Perpendicular to those, was the table for the professors and the headmaster, allowing them to look down on the students. In the air floated hundreds of candles for some reason. In the center of the room at the very back, right in front of the professor desk, was a chair, and upon it sat a hat.

"This is the sorting hat." McGonnagal explained. "When I call your name, you will sit down, and the hat will be placed on your head. It will then sort you into your houses." With that, the hat broke into a "song"

_Oh you may not think I'm pretty,_

_But don't judge on what you see,_

_I'll eat myself if you can find_

_A smarter hat than me._

_You can keep your bowlers black,_

_Your top hats sleek and tall,_

_For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat_

_And I can cap them all._

_There's nothing hidden in your head_

_The Sorting Hat can't see,_

_So try me on and I will tell you_

_Where you ought to be._

_You might belong in Gryffindor_

_Where dwell the brave at heart,_

_Their daring, nerve, and chivalry_

_Set Gryffindors apart;_

_You might belong in Hufflepuff,_

_Where they are just and loyal,_

_Those patient Hufflepuffs are true_

_and unafraid of toil;_

_Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,_

_If you've a ready mind,_

_Where those of wit and learning,_

_Will always find their kind;_

_Or perhaps in Slytherin_

_You'll make your real friends,_

_Those cunning folks use any means_

_To achieve their ends._

_So put me on! Don't be afraid!_

_And don't get in a flap!_

_You're in safe hands (though I have none)_

_For I'm a Thinking Cap!  
_

Apparently it was considered appropriate to clap after the song. So Harry decided to lightly clap along with the others. Eventually, once the clapping stopped, McGonnagal pulled out a list of students to call out.

"Abbot, Hannah!"

A young girl walked forward, while McGonnagal picked up the hat. Once the girl sat down the professor pu the hat on her. After twenty seconds of silence, the hat yelled out "_Hufflepuff!_" The girl found her table of calling based on the loud clapping.

"Bones, Susan!"

Another girl. If Harry recalled right, Amelia Bones wasn't married. This would be her niece, though raised as a daughter since the woman's sister and brother-in-law had been killed in Voldemort's war. This time it took a bit longer before the hat once again yelled "_Hufflepuff!"_

Some of the children took longer to be sorted than the others. Harry wasn't sure why, but as he was wondering this, "Dark, Chann!" was called. The hall went quiet to watch this. The Dark family was, typical a- well, a Dark family. Every member of the family had always gone to Slytherin. However, it was well-known that near the end of the war, they had been bitten by a werewolf – Fenrir Greyback – and had all become werewolves, including the youngest child. Werewolves were looked down upon by the pure-bloods. So here was an ex-werewolf from a Dark family, ready to be sorted. It took nearly an entire minute before the hat finally yelled out _"Gryffindor!"_ for her.

The hall went silent at the declaration, before the Gryffindor house started cheering. The two Weasley twins started yelling "We got Dark! We got Dark!" until the entire house took up the chant.

Of those Harry had interacted with on the train, Tracey Davis, Daphne Greengrass, Draco Malfoy, and Theodore Notte all went to Slytherin. Hermione Granger, and Neville Longbottom were both sorted into Gryffindor, though in Hermione's case the hat seemed to deliberate for 4 whole minutes. For Neville, it was 3 minutes. Finally, it came time for the man of the hour.

"Potter, Harry!"

As Harry was called out, he started strolling forward. Everyone was watching him in complete quiet. At the teacher's table, there was a man with greasy hair, and a man in a turban that were emitting pure hatred towards him. However, Harry detected some falseness in the greasy-haired man's glare. Dumbledore was looking at him with twinkling looks, while the Hagrid fellow was smiling at him. The rest seemed to be just curious.

Harry for his own part glanced around the hall as he walked, casting curious glances everywhere. He walked with a deliberate pace that got him to the chair quickly, but it feel like an eternity to everyone. Once there, McGonnagal placed the hat and him.

"_Dear gods! Why! What have I done to deserve this!"_ A voice cried out on his head.

"_Are you the sorting hat?_" Harry thought at the voice.

"_Yes. And oh gods, get me off! Get me off! Get me out of here!"_ The hat seemed to be almost crying.

Harry thought for a moment before realizing that the hat was probably looking at his memories. In Harry's case, the memories closest to the top just so happened to be the worst memories of hundreds of ghosts, specifically collected to torture anyone trying to read his mind.

"_Please, get me out of here! I beg you!"_ The hat continued to scream.

"_If you sort me, they will take you off. Just put me in Slytherin."_ Harry yelled at the hat.

"SLYTHERIN!" The hat screamed so loudly, that Harry cringed in pain. As McGonnagal took off the hat, it let out an audible sigh of relief.

The entire hall was silent, staring, as Harry got up, and started strolling towards the Slytherin section. A moment later, the entire house started clapping, and started up a "We got Potter! We got Potter!" Chant. When Harry sat down next to Malfoy and Daphne, he shook hands with those around him, and then they went back to watching the rest of the sorting. He blatantly avoided the glares and looks of confusion that the staff table were directing his way. Except the greasy-haired man. He seemed very happy.

Although Harry paid attention to where everyone was sorted, at that time none of their names are worth mentioning. Well, aside from pointing out that Weasley was sorted into Gryffindor, well away from Harry thankfully.

"Well, now that that is over, and all of you have been sorted into your house, even if it isn't the house you need to be in" Dumbledore said, glancing at Harry, "I would like to introduce your new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, professor Quirrell!" He said, pointing at turban-head. "Mr. Filch would like me to remind everyone that magic is forbidden in the corridors, and the forbidden Forest is off-limits to everyone. Also, those wishing to not die a painful death should avoid the corridor on the third floor. The complete list of all 432 rules can be found on Mr. Filch's door. And with, let the feast began!"

As Dumbledore clapped his hands, a variety of foods appeared on the tables. People started stacking their plates with various delicacies, though Harry tried to stick to a relatively healthy diet. The meal passed in relative quiet, as people in the house simply introduced themselves to each other.

Harry learned that each house had a house ghost, and Slytherin's was called the Bloody Baron. He was covered in blood surprisingly enough, and everyone – ghosts included – appeared scared of him. Well, Harry, being the exception. The two ended up striking up a friendly chat after a few minutes once the Bloody Baron realized Harry wasn't faking not being intimidated at all. Truthfully, it was hard to find ghosts scary after being taught by zombies of some of the greatest magical knights, that retained their skills from when they were alive.

Eventually dinner ended, the everyone got up to get to their dorms. The first years were lead by the prefects – 2 students per house from each of the 5th through 7th years that were treated as being special – back to their student dorms. The Slytherin dorms were in the dungeons for some bloody reason.

It took a while, but they got there, and to a painting protected by the password "pure blood", because fuck at least pretending to be politically correct. The painting was even of a knight standing over a pregnant woman with a baby in her arms, ready to stab her through while she was pleading. Because once again, fuck appearances.

"These are your dorms. The dorms for the boys are on the right, and the girl dorms are on the left. Do not, under any circumstances end up in your opposite gender's dorms. There are wards to gave you severe pain and hurt if you try. Your bags should already have been carried here by the school elves. For the first week, us prefects will lead you to your classrooms.

"Professor Snape is our head of house, and would like to have a word with you all."

The male fifth year prefect said once they entered the common room. The common room here was rather large, and full of the Slytherin house colors of green and silver. The entire wall appeared to be a single gigantic picture on which snakes moved freely. There were a number of large, comfortable couches, and a fire-place. Probably for the winter.

"Hello everyone." The greasy-haired professor declared, entering the room. "I am Severus Snape, your head of house. I expect you all to behave honorably, and not shame my house in front of the others. You are to not get caught by other professors when breaking the rules. We have won both the House Cup and the Quidditch Cup for the past six years, and I expect to maintain that streak. You do _not_ want to be responsible for causing us to lose either of those.

"Other than that, I expect all of you to attend your classes, and demonstrate Slytherin superiority there. Good luck, and do _not_ embarrass me. Now get to bed. Curfew to your dorms is normally at 9pm, and 11pm to your rooms. Curfew for your looms is lifted at 5am, 6am for your dorms."

With that, the man strolled out. The first years promptly went to their rooms, and had the honor of discovering that they didn't have to put up with plebeian concepts like "room mates". Harry had a nice two-person bed in a room big enough to fit three other such beds, and a fire place. They apparently had to share a bath amongst the male first years, but that was acceptable.

After making sure all of his equipment was in place, Harry pulled out a magical alarm clock – electric technology didn't work here... for now – and set it for 2am. After that, he quickly went to sleep. There was some exploring he wanted to do, and for that, he needed rest first.

* * *

_Disclaimer:_

_Harry has started on multiple plans in this chapter. No, all of them are not immediately going to succeed. Step one: convince a bunch of naive children, was a success. Step two: convince adults, tends to be a lot harder. I haven't entirely decided which ones will succeed, and which will fail though. Or why._


	6. Chapter 5: Failed Assumptions

_**Bakapervert:**_

_For the Quidditch Captains, even in the books, people were willing to listen to him – despite his age – because of his fame. At least the for the first few days. Not necessarily do what he asked, but at least hear him out, until the novelty of it wore off._

_For Tracey and Daphne showing up, have you ever heard a young girl let out a fangirl scream? Those can be detected from a LONG distance away. Making them yaoi fangirls was rather random though I admit. Chann, I could argue based on sufficient exposure to Princess Alice; Alice strikes me as the type who would do anything to spread more chaos because she finds it amusing. The rest of them was a bit of an ass-pull. That said, not every girl will be a yaoi-fangirl._

_As for getting Malfoy's father to commit suicide, Harry is eleven years old. A number of his plans are going to be stupid. And hence stop working once he gets past phase "convince a bunch of other eleven year olds to help you"._

_Though I admit I have been rushing things, and I will try to slow down the pace a bit._

_**Sh8ad8ow:**_

_Thank you _

_**overlord7:**_

_Thank you _

_**tsun:**_

_Spring-break. Sadly it ends on Monday._

_Have to agree with the cross-over part. In hind-sight, I probably should have made this an HP fanfic, and when I got far enough in the story marked it as complete, and started off a new one labeled as a cross-over that was the continuation. That said, I will be introducing some Campione characters once Harry gets to winter break, but nothing worthy enough to call it a proper crossover for a while. Sorry about that._

_For the Captains scene, I figured they are all Quidditch fanatics. Anything that gives them more Quidditch is a good thing. Even if they have to put up listening to a snotty first year for half an hour for it. Based on some comments, looks like I was being unrealistic though._

_Alice is yes, Princess Alice from Campione. As for how Harry and Doni are connected, just some simple comrade in arms. Nothing serious (despite what Alice tries to make it look like for her own entertainment). They didn't meet through Sasha. Sasha doesn't do most of Harry's raising. He wants the boy to be independent. Since those who aren't independent can't really become campione, and hence don't hold the potential to entertain him. I'm not yet sure if I will do a flash back explaining how they met. I will probably have Doni at one point recall it once he gets more active in the story._

_**Gelasia-kitty:**_

_Thank you for the comment, and sorry to disappoint you._

_**Terranorth:**_

_Thank you. Corrected all but some of #4. I figure Draco would mispronounce it on purpose, as well as Daphne when he is insulting her family._

_Yes, Alice from Campione. Though Alice Longbottom will also be making an appearance... As for Alice from Campione, I intend to make her an active part of the story starting after the winter-break. After Harry finishes executing a plan that he hasn't even contemplated yet._

_**KailSakray:**_

_Thank you for the reply._

_**PCheshire:**_

_Princess Alice from Campione, the White Witch (Currently only eleven though). She is still bed-ridden, but not as badly as her state in the Light Novels (she is supposed to deteriorate to that level after helping seal King Arthur)._

_Considering I hate Louise, and found it painful to write her lines for my ztn fanfic, yeah, I will try to avoid giving anyone her personality._

_Alec isn't a Campione yet. Not until next year. _

_Doni isn't doing anything interesting yet. Just chopping stuff to pieces. For now. And no, he won't end up as Harry's lover. Comrade in arms style bromance he has with Godou that has everyone except the two of them convinced they are in love? Of course!_

_For the gods he will kill, I'm hoping to go mostly with Greek/Northern mythology, as that is what I'm familiar with. But might add some from Arthurian legends. I was thinking of giving him a variety of types eventually to round him out._

_Caster type: Merlin/Morgana/Hekate/Hermes (Athena calls mage-knights disciples of Hermes)/Medea._

→ _For Circe, she appears in vol. 13 of the Light Novels, so I would rather let her be for now._

_Lord of Serpents Type: Nidhogg or Metis most likely_

_Ruler type: Aphrodite/Zeus/Odin/Dionysus/Loki/Ares/Tyr_

→ _This would be an authority to give blessings to others and sway their opinions/control them. Kinda like Verethragna's youth form. _

_For the number of plans, while I know what I want him to do, Harry himself doesn't have anything too concrete. His goal is to simply gather as many allies as he can, while minimizing the number of enemies he has. So earn respect, and make people stop hating him. After all, he doesn't know Voldemort is alive yet, and an army will only be useful if he survives fighting his daddy, so what is the hurry? For now at least._

_For Harry's abilities, well, other than his ability to make magic items, he really doesn't have anything unique. Just a mix of HP magic and Campione magic. Campione magic, of course, being rather poorly defined. Oh, and he has a very large knowledge of modern weaponry. That, quite frankly, can be a game breaking ability when combined with magic._

_**Sacchin:**_

_Thank you for the reply._

* * *

**Chapter 5: Failed Assumptions**

_1991 September 2_

Harry woke up to the sound of his alarm clock. His magical alarm clock. Turning it off, he put on his robes, and snuck into the common-room, and then out into the corridors. He went off to explore the castle, trying to map out the area.

It took him a good ten minutes, before the complete meaning of the phrase "moving corridors" struck home; he couldn't trace back his steps. He didn't know his way back to the common-room. And he had to be back there by five.

Sighing, he contemplated his options. He could continue exploring, or he could try and find his way back to the dungeons. He wanted to check out the corridor on the third floor, but he wasn't sure if he could get back in time. _Well, not if I try it normally at least._

There dungeons were on what was equivalently the 0th floor. Currently he was on the first floor. At least, if he kept track of which floor he wasn't on, he shouldn't get too lost. _Right. Now lets give this a proper go._

"Soar. Wings of Hermes."

Harry uttered the incantation, activating leap magic. He proceeded to sprint about the floor, until he found a flight of stairs heading up. They were in the middle of moving, but he didn't care. He simply traveled up in two leaps, and leapt off the stairs to land on the second floor. The moment he landed, he was moving again, until he found an open passage that was missing stairs. Jumping back and forth between the walls, he traveled up, until he was on the third floor.

"Okay, now I just need to find that damn corridor."

His watch told him it was 3 o'clock by the time he located the corridor in question. The door was locked, but a simply _alohomora_ spell, a spell that first years learned, opened it. Almost as if first years were meant to be able to get in here after just a few weeks of lessons.

Slowly, Harry opened the door and peaked in, to locate a gigantic, three headed dog sleeping. His first thought was a Divine Beast Cerberus. However, the creature didn't have the oppressive feeling of a Divine Beast. Which meant just a regular Cerberus. So, still capable of probably killing most of the _faculty_ in this place. _What the hell is this creature doing in a school?_

As he was thinking this, the creature woke up, and started growling. Harry casually took out a pen, transmuted it into a flute, and started playing it. The beast growled a bit more, and then slowly went back to sleep. In another contingency, a Cerberus may have been a threat to Harry. However, he was rather experienced with Northern and Greek mythology. The story of Orpheus putting the creature to sleep with music was rather famous.

After noting that the creature was sleeping atop of a trap door, Harry left, closed the door, and was about to lock it when he noticed a cat meow. He remembered this cat. Ms. Norris. The creature was rumored to be Filch's cat, and responsible for locating students out of curfew and getting them in trouble.

Harry glanced at the cat, glanced at the door, and then rushed the cat. The creature, realizing it was in trouble tried to run for it, but not before Harry caught the creature, and put a piece of cloth in its mouth to silence it. He locked the door with a spell, and proceeded to high-tail it the hell out of here. _God damn it. Had it been a student, I would have no trouble chucking them in there. But this cat is innocent!_

He ended up dumping the cat off on the fourth floor, and demonstrated the complete broken-ness of leap magic, by reaching the dungeon in under a minute using the complex technique of "falling". He only needed three semi-stops along the way to make the entire fall completely safe.

After that, he spent nearly an hour before he could locate the Slytherin common-room again. Once there, he used the password to slip in, and proceeded to take a shower. _Well, at least I got my morning exercise in._ He thought with a sad smile.

Still, there were so many unanswered questions. Why on earth would _anyone_ bring a _Cerberus_ into a _school_ for _children_? Why put it behind a door that most first years learned to unlock within a _month_? Why then tell said first years exactly where to find excitement?

It was almost as if Dumbledore wanted a first year to get in there. _And not to brag, but I'm the _only_ important first year in the entire school._ So Dumbledore wanted Harry to in there for some reason. Eventually. _Well, I do like to comply with the requests of people in a timely manner._

* * *

A few hours later, the Slytherin first years were lead by the fifth year prefects to go ahead and have breakfast. As they were sitting down, Snape walked by and handed them their schedules. Apparently the entire house had classes together for the first two years, and each class was with one other house.

"Hey Harry, I sent my father an owl last night, so it is too late to back out of the bet now." Malfoy said with a wide grin as he sat down next to Harry. Harry just shrugged.

"Well, that won't come up until tomorrow. For now, lets look at our classes."

"You sure are carefree." Daphne noted as she joined them, along with Tracey. Pansy Parkinson – another Slytherin girl – sat down next to Draco, and did her best to try and flirt with him. It was rather embarrassingly sad to watch.

"Our first morning class is History of Magic with Ravenclaw." Draco remarked. "My dad says that is the most boring class in the entire school. He would have preferred to take Muggle-Studies over it. And they haven't changed professors since his time."

"Wait." Tracey interrupted. "_Your_ father found something that makes M_uggle_ Studies preferable?"

"Actually my dad agrees with him." Theodore added in. "History of Magic is just _that_ bad." The entire group – minus Harry – shuddered at the thought.

"Our next class" Draco continued "after a break is Defense Against the Dark Arts. Since they change professors every year, my dad can't comment on the specifics. However, our teachers are likely to be pretty bad."

"And after that, it is lunch, and then Herbology with Ravenclaw. So Draco, according to your father which classes here are actually worth taking?" Harry asked out of curiosity.

"Not much." Draco admitted. "My dad wanted me to go to Dumstang where they actually focus on learning the Dark Arts. Here, the only classes he considers _acceptable_ are Transfiguration, Charms, and the only one up to standards is Potions. Of course, that is taught by my god-father, so it is only natural to be up to standards. Ancient Runes and Arithmancy from the later years are apparently worth taking even if the teaching could use some help."

Harry decided to take note of that. Draco's father may have been a bigoted asshole, but he was probably pretty knowledgeable about magic.

As they started to eat, owls started flying into the room, delivering letters to the students. Most of Slytherin house appeared to receive various small gifts and sweets from home. Malfoy and Notte both received letters from their fathers though, and made them look disappointed.

"What happened?" Harry asked.

"Apparently our fathers don't think it is the place of eleven year olds to be telling them whom to hunt down." Theodore explained. Draco just nodded along.

"Well, there goes that bet." Harry sighed, and noticed Snape heading towards them. "Hello Professor Snape."

"Potter, the Headmaster would like to see you in his office. I shall be taking you there. Bring your stuff, you will be heading to class straight afterward."

"Yes Professor." Harry nodded, and grabbed his stuff. The others just stared, but let the two be. As Harry looked Snape in the eyes, for a moment, he felt a force against his mind. It was gone a moment later, having not tried to breach his defenses.

"I'm happy to see you have some level of Occlumency Potter. However, those feeble defenses would only be sufficient to detect an attempted intrusion, and would fail against the weakest of Legilimency."

Snape said as he lead Harry down a corridor.

"That shield isn't meant to keep anyone out professor. It is meant to stop someone from accidentally reading my mind; I have met a few who had a weak level of Legilimency that they couldn't suppress. I have other defenses beyond that shield."

Harry explained, deciding to be blunt and honest here. He could have kept it quiet, but in that case Snape might have tried to read his mind later on. Hospitalizing his head of house would be a horrible idea.

"Do these defenses have anything to do with why the Sorting Hat was crying for five hours straight last night? It is quite the miracle that it ever completed the sorting."

"Ah, yes. No one told me I needed to have my mind read, so I didn't think to remove my defenses. Am I in trouble for that?" Harry tried to look as innocent as he could.

"No, we couldn't find any school rules against giving Post Traumatic Stress Disorder to a hat. However, the Headmaster would like to know the details. And may declare your sorting invalid, and put you in a different house."

"Let me guess. Gryffindor, so I can be the champion of the light. Because everyone from that house is perfectly just and kind and hard working and fair and never discriminated against others, or bullied anyone. While Slytherin is a smoldering pit of evil, bigotry, and incest full of Dark Witches and Wizards, and those two lazy to became Dark Witches and Wizards."

Snape looked at the boy. "While not the specific reasons of the Headmaster, those are the public conceptions, yes."

"Public _mis_conceptions professor. Misconceptions that need to be changed. That is why I asked the hat to put me in Slytherin professor. If people want me to be their champion of the light, they need to stop discriminating against Slytherin as a whole. If they can't do that, I'm happy to leave the job to someone who actually _earned_ the title, instead of someone famous for the actions of his parents."

"You know Potter, I thought you would be far more spoiled by fame." Snape admitted as they reached a pair of gargoyles. "Well, here we are. Lemon Drops."

With that _unusual_ password, the gargoyles moved aside, revealing a rotating stair-case. The two of them stepped on the stairs, and simply had the stairs carry them to the top. There, they waited for the door to open before stepping into Dumbledore's office.

In the office stood Headmaster Dumbledore and Deputy Headmistress McGonnagal.

"Headmaster, I have brought the boy." Snape said in a tone that was nearly a growl.

"Hello Professor and Professor. Am I in trouble?" Harry asked as politely as he could.

"Not at all my boy. I was just going over your sorting with the Sorting Hat, and learned that it didn't sort you properly." Dumbledore explained with a smile. "I was wondering if we could rectify that."

"I'm surprised you managed to convince the Sorting Hat to sit on my head again professor." Harry admitted.

"Actually, we didn't." That was Professor McGonnagal. "It refused to sit on your head, even if you were to remove whatever defenses it had the first time around. I have never seen the hat this shell-wrecked before."

"That is because it hasn't ever been shell-wrecked at all Minerva." Dumbledore said calmly. "Tell me my boy, what did you do?"

Harry just shrugged. "Around two years back, I got the assistance of some three hundred or so war veterans. Using magic, I temporarily gained their worst memories, and constructed my mental barriers so that anyone breaking my Occulmency barrier would be subjected to those memories. Since Occlumency and Leligimency rely on mental focus, this would allow me to read their minds with trivial ease, even if they far outclass me. Of course, since the magic only gave me the memories temporarily, I don't have the slightest clue what is contained in there. Aside from them being the worst horrors of war that three hundred men saw."

"I see." Dumbledore gulped. "And if you wanted to let someone read your mind?"

"I would need to remove that defense. Last time it took me an entire month, during which the only way I could sleep was by pushing my body until I collapsed from exhaustion every single day. It would probably be the same process all over again. So I refuse to remove it without a _very_ good reason that makes an entire month of suffering worth it."

That got him quite a few stares. Dumbledore knew of some of what Harry had been forced through. But now he was learning that Harry had forced _himself_ through other suffering of his own free will. Just to protect himself.

_Dear gods, what have I done to this boy?_ Dumbledore thought. _He must face Lord Voldemort upon the Dark Lord's return. There is nothing I can do to change that. However, I was hoping to protect him from any other suffering he would have to go through. Instead I learn that he was both physically and mentally abused as a child, and now that he willingly underwent mental torture just to protect himself. He was already doomed to become a martyr as a young adult. However, I at least hoped to give him a happy childhood. Now I learn that he _never_ had a childhood._

_I need to rectify that. While I must prepare him for the inevitable conflict with Voldemort, I need to also make sure he remembers why he must fight. The only weapon that can win against Voldemort is love. Harry must experience and love here at Hogwarts. He must learn to not sacrifice those for every little thing. He must be willing to sacrifice, but only when absolutely necessary. Sadly, I do not doubt that he will find no happiness in Slytherin._

With that, Dumbledore resolved himself for what he must do, and the inevitable argument that would follow.

_Is this really what James and Lily's son has gone through?_ McGonnagal thought. _We have enjoyed a decade of peace and happiness thanks to their sacrifice. Yet we never asked ourselves if their boy was enjoying the peace and happiness that he brought us. We said praise to his name, but never cared about his actual person. We can't keep continuing to fail this boy. We owe it to Lily and James for their sacrifice to ensure he has a happy life. _McGonnagal resolved herself.

_I thought Dumbledore was supposed to protect Lily's son!_ That was Snape. _First he loses the boy, and now we learn the boy has willingly seen hell. Despite his looks, this boy definitely takes after Lily and not James. He doesn't have any of James's haughtiness, laziness, or unwillingness to sacrifice. I swore to obey Dumbledore in everything in order to protect this boy. If Dumbledore can not protect him, I will have to protect him myself._

"Well my boy," Dumbledore began "since we can't give you a proper sorting, it is then my duty as Headmaster to determine the right house for you. Given that I understand you have already made friends with Mr. Longbottom, Ms. Granger, and Ms. Dark, I believe you will be best served by being placed in Gryffindor."

_Well, that was an even worse justification than what I expected._

"I'm sorry Professor, but what exactly is wrong with Slytherin?" Harry decided to ask.

"Nothing is wrong with it my boy. It is an excellent house. However, I do not believe you will find happiness there. People see you as the champion of the light, and they see Slytherin as the house of the dark. Those who would have been your allies will distance themselves from you, while your enemies will have an easier time attacking you. I'm sorry my boy, but due to your fame you already have allies and enemies." Dumbledore added on the last sentence at seeing Harry's growl.

"So we are condemning the entire house as being dark because popular opinion says so? Professor I was under the impression that you believed in people deserving second chances. Yet you aren't willing to give eleven year olds a _first_ chance because of how popular opinion _mis-_interprets what a talking hat said?" Harry hissed out at the old man, surprising everyone at the intensity of his tone.

"Potter, that is no way to talk to the headmaster. I would detect points from your house, but you don't have a house to deduct points from." McGonnagal scolded. "Besides, I don't see how this tangent has to do with what house you are sorted into."

"Professor, lets be honest here. I have a level of fame that no student has had in decades if not in forever. People flock to fame, and justify and rationalize the actions of those that are famous. Fame is a bludgeon that can be used to bend the opinions of the masses to your favor. By using my fame as the champion of the light, I have _the_ number one best chance in all of Hogwarts of removing the stigma of Slytherin being the house of evil. Of removing the centuries of hatred between Slytherin and the other houses. Because if I'm sorted into Slytherin, people from other houses will try to make friends with me, and through me others in Slytherin."

"Is that also why you tried to redo how Quidditch is run at Hogwarts my boy?" Dumbledore asked. "Oh, it is quite obvious that that was you. All four Quidditch Captains, including two that are outright hostile to one another, bring the _exact same suggestion_ to each of their heads of houses, on the day you are enrolled. Furthermore, those plans just happen to coincide with the goals you have proposed here."

"I never tried to hide that those were my plans." Harry said with a shrug. "Frankly, I just don't care if I get the credit for it or not. All I care for is the results."

For some reason Snape nodded happily at that.

"And that is the problem my boy." Dumbledore reasoned. "The purpose of the sorting isn't to determine in what house you can best help others. It is to determine what house is best _for you_. You want to go to Slytherin to help others, but being in Slytherin isn't the best for _your_ happiness."

"Headmaster, surely we must consider the boy's own opinion in this." Snape protested.

"I'm sorry Severus, but I have already made my decision. Potter, you are as of this moment re-sorted into Gryffindor. However, as consolation for over ruling your opinion here, the change to our Quidditch tournament that you suggested will be allowed. I shall make both announcements today at dinner. Your things will already be moved to your new room by the time you get there. You shall be rooming with young Ronald Weasley. For now, I believe you have Herbology lessons in a short while. Minerva can escort you there, and give you your schedule."

Dumbledore finished his decree. Harry felt like lashing out, or calling in a debt, but calmed himself. There wasn't really anything he could do. Dumbledore would only listen to those debts because he felt sorry for what he subjected Harry to. Meaning, he would only listen to them when it was for Harry's own good. If he was doing what he considered the best for Harry, he would ignore those debts.

"My boy, I want you to know that I do approve of what you are trying to do. However, I do not approve of you sacrificing yourself in the process. It is meaningless to try and save others and bring them happiness if you aren't happy yourself. People can admire the path of a martyr, but that is a lonely path that no one will want to walk with you. And we _all_ need friends to rely on at the darkest of times. I know you must be frustrated, but this truly is for the best."

With that, Dumbledore dismissed them. Harry just followed Professor McGonnagal in a daze. He heard what she said, and remembered it, but wasn't fully registering it right now. Something about where the dorms were, and how the house would welcome him, and friendship, and family, and love, and blah blah blah. He would need to think back on this conversation when he was more aware of himself.

* * *

"What is it Severus?" Dumbledore said with a tired sigh when he noticed that Snape had yet to leave the office.

"What the hell happened to that boy headmaster? You were supposed to protect him these past ten years. What has he gone through while under your protection?" Snape demanded.

"Severus, you know as well as I do that we lost track of the boy a number of years ago. There was nothing I could do to protect him."

"Just like there was nothing you could do to protect Lily after you swore to protect her? Is your oath worth anything Dumbledore!? What has that boy suffered while you were too busy playing politics to do your duty to him!? While you were neglecting him in favor of power!?"

Snape knew that he wasn't being entirely fair, but he didn't care. As he made his demands, Dumbledore recoiled in shock, as well as knowledge of his guilt. Snape took that moment to strike, blasting the old man with the full power of his Legilimency. Normally Dumbledore's Occlumency was too powerful for Snape to have the slightest chance of success. However, distracted by guilt as the old man was, with his guard down expecting no attacks, Snape was easily able to blast through the old man's defenses.

Snape wasn't able to see much of Dumbledore's thoughts before he was rudely kicked out. However, he saw enough. He saw the boy's confrontation with Dumbledore at Cornelius's office, where Harry revealed the scars on his back. It made the hair rise on Snape's back to realize that whatever Harry had gone through since he ran away from home, he considered an _improvement_ over living with his family.

"Severus, I realize you are upset. However you must trust me-"

"Headmaster, the problem is that I have been trusting you _too much_. It is meaningless to ensure that the boy survives the return of the Dark Lord if he tastes so much despair until then that he wishes he were dead."

"Severus, it is almost as if you cared." Dumbledore tried to joke.

"I do. Ten years ago I considered hiding it, and protecting the boy from the shadows. Now I realize I do not have that luxury." Snape scowled as he turned, and started marching out the room.

"And where are you headed Severus?"Dumbledore asked.

"Setting up contingencies, in case it turns out that you do not have the boy's best interest at heart." The potion master said before he marched out the door. In another universe he may have been happy protecting the boy from the shadows, while he was hated by everyone, including the boy. This wasn't such a universe. In this universe, the boy didn't need more enemies. He needed people who would love him, and who he knew would be willing to die protecting him. Snape knew of one man that he could trust with this. He hated the man, but it would still be better than to entirely entrust the boy to Dumbledore.

* * *

Harry felt rather awkward as he was lead into Herbology by professor McGonnagal. The other students had just arrived, and Professor Sprout – the Head of Hufflepuff, and the Herbology teacher – was just about to introduce herself.

"Professor McGonngal. What can I do to you?"

"I'm sorry for the interruption Pomona. The Headmaster has decided that Harry Potter's original sorting was invalid, and has placed him in Gryffindor. I expect everyone in my house to treat him with the respect due of a fellow Gryffindor."

Professor Sprout blinked, while the students started murmuring to one another. While the headmaster _was_ allowed to change a person's house, it was rarely used. Once every few decades, when a student wasn't safe in their original house.

"Well yes, welcome Mr. Potter. Perhaps you can partner up with Mr. Longbottom. Today we will be work with-"

And so Professor sprout began her lecture, cutting off the opportunity of students to bug Harry about his transfer. The class involved the nurturing, maintenance, and harvesting of various plants. It appeared that one or more classes would be devoted to working with each plant.

Harry's partner, Neville, had was quite the expert at Herbology, having enjoyed working in his garden back at home. Consequently, the duo made quick work of the task, Harry mostly learning from Neville as they went.

Some of the other groups had a bit more trouble, as Ron's partner, a Mr. Finnegan managed to make his non-combustible plant explode. Somehow. Without using a wand. _I must learn this art!_ Still, aside from the magically-impossible explosion, the class went well, after which Harry headed off along with Hermione, Chann, and Neville to enjoy their hour and a half break before transfiguration.

* * *

"What do you want Severus? I don't remember inviting you into my house." Sirius growled, as Snape stepped out of the Black family's fire place without so much as a "by your leave".

"This isn't a social call Black. I'm here to discuss your godson." Snape responded with a hiss.

"Isn't the usual policy when a student broke the rules to owl their parents? Not invade their homes?" Sirius said. Almost as if he was _proud_ that Harry had managed to break rules this badly after being at Hogwarts for less than 24 hours.

"I'm happy to disappoint you Black that your godson is not in trouble. At least not from the school." Snape said, and let that sink in, as he took a seat without invite.

"Kreacher." Sirius called out, and waited for the elf to appear. "Please bring us some tea." He asked, doing his best to be polite to the creature – he did want to keep Harry's wishes, and it _was_ making the elf a lot more tolerable – as he also sat down.

"Yes master." The elf said before puffing away, and returning a moment later with some tea.

"Thank you Kreacher." Snape visibly raised an eyebrow at a _Black_ treating a _house elf_ with respect. "Harry's request." Sirius explained. "So what did you mean that he isn't in trouble with the _school_?"

"Are you aware of what Harry's life has been like before you left prison? What he has done in those ten years?" Snape asked with a perfect calm. Occlumency helped with that. Actually, in that way his Occlumency was completely different from Harry's; not that either of them had tested each other enough to know. While Harry just created a barrier around his mind, Snape simply suppressed any thoughts he wanted hidden. That, and emotions like rage and sadness right now.

"No, Harry hasn't been willing to talk about his life before then. I figured I would give him some time to sort out his feelings before pressing him on it. I'm not sure what you are getting it Severus. He might be James's son, but he is just a boy."

"No, I wouldn't say he is _just_ a boy. I'm not even sure if Potter _knows_ how to be a boy Black."

"What the hell are you trying to say Severus!" Sirius yelled in rage, slamming his hand on the table. "My godson is an eleven year old human! Of course he is a boy!"

"Today, I learned that your godson has already learned Occlumency." Snape began. "In fact, he has _developed his own version of Occlumency_. It involves placing a set of horrible memories at the front, so that anyone invading the mind suffers a mental collapse, weakening them."

He let those words sink in. Learning Occlumency as an adult was hard. Learning Occlumency by eleven, by itself, was already considered an accomplishment. Developing your own version by then was unheard of. _Not that that is all that Potter has done._

"To collect these memories, by his own admission, he used magic to temporarily learn the _absolute worst_ memories of three hundred combat veterans. Apparently for a month, the only way he could sleep was by pushing himself until he collapsed from exhaustion. These memories were bad enough to give the _Sorting Hat _ a mental breakdown! He did this _willingly_. Those aren't the actions of a boy Black. I'm not sure _I_ would have gone through with that during the war when we were fighting the Dark Lord. And I was a spy. What do you think would push a child to acts like this just to protect his mind?"

Sirius just sat there, while Snape let that sink in for a few moments before continuing.

"This is around the same time when he found a cure for lycanthropy. If that one invention was all he had ever accomplished in his entire life, it would _still_ be enough for him to go down in history books. These aren't the accomplishments of a _boy_ Sirius. Whatever your godson has been through the last six years, has forced him to grown up far too fast. He is most definitely more mature than you or his father have ever been, out of necessity."

Sirius nodded. "Still, I don't see what you are getting at Severus. The boy has a right to be mature. Besides, whatever he has been through, he has James's blood. I'm sure he will learn to let loose now that he is in Hogwarts. In a month you will be yelling at me about the pranks that the boy is pulling."

Snape shook his head. "I'm not sure if you understand Black. I'm uncertain if the boy understands the concept of let loose. You probably know – if you read the most recent biography published about him – that the boy ran away from home at five. What the books don't tell you is _why_ he ran away from home, or the conditions he lived in. I saw a memory of Dumbledore's, when the boy confronted Dumbledore about them.

"Potter's back _still_ bears the scars from being whipped when he lived with his so-called family. You know how he didn't learn his name until recently? That is because when he lived with his family, the concept that he might _have_ a name never occurred to him. He was called freak. He thought that he wasn't human, but a creature called a freak. He has been through verbal and physical abuse that makes whatever he subjected himself to since pale in comparison.

"You call your godson a boy, but he has _never_ had an opportunity to be a boy. He is a child forced to live his life as an adult, who has been through more than many of those who have fought in the war. I'm not sure what it is that allows him to keep going, but whatever it is, if he ever loses that, he will break, either becoming a new Dark Wizard, or a shell without the will to live."

Sirius was visibly shaking at this. "And what is it that you want me to do Severus?"

"Become the boy's support." Snape answered. "Whatever is supporting the boy will be gone by then. If you want what is best for your godson, you need to ensure that by then he has something else to support him. As loathe as I am to take a page out of Dumbledore's book, the boy needs love. He needs a family and friends that give him love and support. You need to learn whatever burden it is that the child is carrying, and take it off of his shoulders.

"Do not expect to see James in your godson. I'm not sure if the boy can handle any more burdens being placed on his shoulder, but even if he can, he is already suffering under more than anyone should have to. Simply accept him for who he is. And why you are at it, consider getting yourself a woman. The boy could use a mother's love."

Sirius nodded at that, and Snape got up to leave.

"Where are you headed?" Sirius asked.

"Unlike a certain layabout, I'm actually _employed_. As much as I might _pretend to_ enjoy my stay here, I have work to get back to. However, I will tell you one more thing. The headmaster believes that the Dark Lord will be back, and when he returns, he will be going after your godson once again. You must protect Harry without him knowing about this danger."

"Return? But how. You-Know-Who is dead!"

"That is what I said. Hogwarts!" Snape said, throwing some dust into the fire place. The flames turned green, and he stepped into them, disappearing into the flames. Left behind was an utterly confused Sirius Black. He knew that he had to do something, but he had no idea what. Interacting with Harry, the possibility that the eleven year old kid was more mature than him _had_ occurred to him. However, what that meant, hadn't until now. After all, all that Sirius was good at was fighting, and pranking.

The fact that maybe both their assessments of Harry was completely wrong, didn't really occur to either of them.

* * *

As Harry finished up with Herbology, he realized a horrifying problem. Dumbledore hadn't given him an excuse to use as to why he was resorted! He could come up with something, but then if Dumbledore said something else at dinner, that would be a problem.

_Damn it._

"So Potter" the Ron began in a menacing tone. He suddenly started tried to make his tone neutral when Harry glanced in his eyes. "You haven't told us why you switched houses."

"Yes, I didn't even know that was possible." Chann added.

"According to _Hogwarts: A History_" _aka the exposition device_ Harry thought as Hermione started her explanation "A Headmaster has the right to change the house that someone is assigned to. However, it is rarely used, usually once every few decades, for the sake of student safety."

"Student safety?" The pyrotechnics expert asked.

"The school is populated by teenagers. Teenagers tend to do stupid things, especially when they are bullying others." Harry explained. "It is really hard for people our age to determine when they have gone too far. No matter how far they go, they will end up justifying the act to themselves. Consequently, if every single one of someone's room mates starts bullying them, and they are forced to continue living with those people." Harry paused to let it all sink in. "Well, it becomes a possibility that those room mates will end up causing permanent, irreparable injury. That said, I doubt that was the case here."

"What do you mean, you 'doubt'?" The was Dean Thomas.

"Well, I didn't feel threatened for the one single night I spent in my dorms. That said, Dumbledore never gave me a reason as to why he made me switch houses. He is apparently going to announce my house change today at dinner, along with a change to how Quidditch is run this year. Maybe at that time he will explain his reason for the change."

"Can he do that though?" Hermione asked. "Doesn't he at least need your permission to change houses."

"Apparently not." Harry admitted. "Generally speaking the Headmaster only needs permission for decisions that could negatively impact the students. So if any of you want to get rid of me, you need to come up with arguments as to why Slytherin is better than Gryffindor. Personally I couldn't think of any, and if you can't either, you are stuck with me."

Harry looked around, but no one was volunteering to argue why Slytherins would be better than them. Which meant that they had no choice but accept him as one of their own. Well, the only one who seemed to mind was Ron. Apparently he was still upset over being man-handled.

"So where should we head to? We still have a while before transfiguration class." Harry asked them.

"We are supposed to wait at our common-rooms for a prefect to take us to class for the first week." Hermione pointed out. As she did, they could see what Harry presumed to be a prefect, but looked like a Weasley – probably that Percy fellow – walk up to them.

"There you are. First years, follo- Potter, what are you doing here?" The boy demanded.

"Professor Dumbledore changed his house from Slytherin to Gryffindor." Chann explained.

"He can't do that! We won't have any Slytherins in Gryffindor!" The prefect objected.

Harry just shrugged. "If you have any issues with it, you need to bring it up with Dumbledore. Even the heads of houses can't do anything about it. In case my complete lack of a beard, my drop dead gorgeous looks, my bewitching, or my trade-mark scar didn't give it away, I'm not Dumbledore. None of us are. So yelling at us won't change anything."

The prefect just huffed, and muttered about tone, but eventually sighed. "Very well, follow along you lot" and lead them towards the common-room.

"So, who wants to start a betting pool on how we lose our DADA professor this year?" Harry asked his fellow first years innocently.

"How do you know we are going to lose him?" Hermione piqued up.

"There is supposed to be a curse on the position." Harry said with a shrug.

"How do you curse a position? Must be just a rumor." Hermione argued.

"It is true. No one has lasted more than a year at the position in decades." Finnegan protested. Most of the students nodded along.

"As loathsome as I find a betting pool on this topic, they are correct in that the curse's effect can be documented for the last 34 years." Percy pointed out. "It is highly likely to exist."

"Hermione, if you don't believe in the curse, you can bet on him lasting beyond the end of the year." Harry pointed out.

"So how would we do this? Just those of us here?" Ron asked. Apparently his dislike for Harry didn't measure up to his interest in making money.

"Betting pools are actually against the rules. _Especially_ on such a morbid topic. So I will have to put an end to this now." Percy said out loud.

A few of the Gryffindors muttered at that, but Harry just smiled. The whole fact that they weren't sure if he was an enemy or not was conveniently forgotten.

* * *

Transfiguration class with Ravenclaw went rather well. When they initially arrived, there was only a cat sitting at the head table, so people started sitting down casually. There were a number of mutters wondering the cat was though. Harry's theory that the cat was McGonngal was rejected as ridiculous by most students.

"Looks like McGonnagal isn't here yet." Ron remarked, entering the class slightly late, along with Seamus Finnigan. Harry wasn't sure how they managed when the entire year was lead here by a prefect as a group Just then, the cat jumped off the table, and turned into McGonnagal.

"That will be five points from Gryffindor for both Mr. Weasley and Mr. Finnigan for being late." She announced.

"I am Minerva McGonnagal, and I will be your Transfiguration instructor." She told them. "Transfiguraion is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts. Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned." She told them by means of introductions.

"Now, you will find a toothpick in front of each of you. Your task for the week will be learning to turn your toothpick into a pin." She announced. "The wand movement is as such." She said as she flicked her wand. "Begin."

Harry waited for a short bit, watching his classmates make their attempts, and see how well everyone did. For most of the class, nothing happened on the first try. Hermione and Neville were half-way there, while Chann, having practiced for a few months now, got it right away. Harry pulled out his wand, and with a quick flick also transfigured his perfectly.

Immediately, he got up and walked over to Hermione. "Hermione, one of the basics of magic is visualizing. You need to focus on visualizing only success. Don't imagine the toothpick turning into a pin. Don't imagine both a toothpick and a pin. You seem to be doing one of those two. Imagine that there is only a pin on your desk. _Believe _that there is only a pin on your desk, and that is all you see when you perform the spell."

"But that doesn't mean any sense. I know there is a toothpick there." Hermione objected.

"Magic is convincing reality that what is actually real is wrong, and what you believe is correct. How are you going to convince reality to change its mind, if you can't even convince yourself? Believe and know what you _want_ to be, not what _is_, and what you want will become what is. Just trust me and try it."

Hermione nodded and tried the spell, and was pleasantly surprised at her success. Nodding, Harry moved along over to Neville.

"Neville, one of the basics of magic is belief. Believing in what is supposed to be. Don't doubt yourself. Don't doubt whether you can succeed. _You_ that you will succeed. You already have the knowledge and skill to perform this spell. Once you have confidence, you will be fine. Remember what I said about repeating 'I can do this' in front of a mirror? It is basically that lesson all over again."

Neville nodded, and told himself he could do this three times, before he tried again, and was pleasently surprised when all but the tip was turned into a pin.

"Why are you surprised?" Harry asked. "If you are surprised at succeeding, that means you didn't believe in yourself. Expect to succeed, so that succeeding doesn't surprise you." Harry instructed as he turned the pin back into a toothpick.

Neville nodded and tried again, succeeding this time.

"5 points to each of Mr. Potter, Ms. Dark, Ms. Granger, and Mr. Longbottom for success. Another 10 points to Mr. Potter for helping classmates." McGonnagal announced.

After that, the four of them went around the class, trying to help their classmates. A few, most notably Ron Weasley huffed indignantly at anyone trying to help them. Harry, Chann, and Neville took the hint, but Hermione seemed oblivious to the idiocy of her classmates. Harry worried for her.

By the time class had ended, they had earned a few extra points, and now some of the Ravenclaws had succeeded as well.

* * *

After Transfiguration they had lunch, during which most of the school learned that Harry's house had been switched. A number of students were confused on how to take this, although Harry was happy to see that the Slytherins seemed upset. Apparently they had at least liked him.

During this time, Harry arranged with the twins to be able to borrow the Marauder's Map for the day. The two agreed, but weren't happy with Harry not telling them what he was going to do it with. Apparently "initiate indoctrination into the magic of friendship" wasn't a valid answer.

Well, they would find out sometime tomorrow at the latest anyways...

After lunch, the first year Gryffindors had History of Magic – that supposedly focused on the Goblin Revolutions according to the upper years – with a group of Hufflepuffs. Harry, Chann, Hermione, and Neville decided to sit at the front of the class by Hermione's insistance. Apparently she preferred to always sit at the front. _Typical honor student. Wonder if she ever had any friends until now._

"Hello everyone. My name is Professor Binns, and I will be teaching you History of Magic."

A ghost declared, entering the room at precisely 2pm, when the class was supposed to start. And that, was the most exciting event of the entire class. They entered straight into a war containing egregious amounts of murder, fighting, tactics, rape, and heroism. And yet, Binns succeeded in making the class boring. By the time they were five minutes into class, he had put most of the class to sleep. Neville and Chann were struggling to stay awake, but it was a losing fight. Other than those two, the only ones awake were Harry and Hermione, who were dutifully taking notes, and paying attention.

By the time the class hit ten minutes, only Harry and Hermione were awake. The two of them managed to last the entire hour though, and had a complete set of notes by the end of it. At precisely 3pm, Binns just stopped mid-sentence, and exited the class, not noticing that nearly everyone was asleep.

Still, as soon as Binns left, his hypnotism spell seemed to wear off, and students started waking up. In a few more minutes, a group of tired Gryffindors were headed to their common-room.

"That was the most boring class I ever listened to." Ron commented. His pet rat Scabbard yawned, finally waking up after having also slept through the class.

"Actually Ron, I'm pretty sure you were asleep, and weren't listening." Chann pointed out.

"The most boring class we ever had the displeasure of being in then." Finnigan said.

"Really? I found the class quite entertaining, and Binns to be rather animated." Harry admitted. For some reason his house-mates – and the puffs who were still with them – were staring at him in stunned horror.

"You are... joking. Right?" Hermione asked.

"I wish. Compared to the teachers I'm used to, Binns was rather animated and active in his teaching. It might just be that after the teachers I am used to, my standards are very low."

Hey, it was true. His teachers, like Binns, were dead. However, Binns at least had a study plan, and lead the class. Instead of having to have every single tidbit prodded out of him before droning it out.

"He is joking right? Please tell me he is joking." Ron muttered as he stared at The-Boy-Who-Lived-Through-A-Class-Worse-Than-Binn's.

* * *

Dinner that day was abnormal to say the least. As dinner was starting, Professor Dumbledore stood up, and with a loud clap silenced the hall.

"If you all would excuse me, I have a few announcements to make. First, I have decided to rule Mr. Potter's sorting into Slytherin invalid, and placed him in Gryffindor. My decision is final, and no one, not even Mr. Potter or his head of house can over turn this.

"Next." He continued, completely ignoring the outbursts in the hall. "The way Quidditch is handled this year will be changed." As this was broadcast through the hall, people went quiet again. Quidditch was serious business. "On request from all four team captains, we have decided to have six Quidditch teams, and ten Quidditch matches this year. The teams will be independent of houses, so we expect every team to be composed of a variety of houses.

"Try-outs both for the two remaining Captain slots, as well as to be on the teams will be on the weekend of the second week, starting at 10am on Saturday. The rule that first years may not participate is still in effect however. We of the staff hope that you will continue to enjoy the Quidditch games, and find this an opportunity to bring you closer to those of other houses.

"Now, please enjoy your dinner."

And with that, the old man sat down while the hall erupted once more into noise. Harry was glad to see that most of the discussion was about the changes to Quidditch. This wasn't the type of attention that he enjoyed. Still, there were a number of Slytherins who came up to him and made it very clear that they were upset by this "treason".

_Not that I can blame them. It was their one chance to not be hated by the rest of the houses. Okay, the one chance that they know of._

"Hey, what are you working on?" Chann asked as she noticed that Harry was looking at a poem, and trying to make four copies of it.

"Trying to make four versions of the Sith Code." He admitted. She just blinked.

"Why? Planning to go Dark on us?"

"No, if I wanted to do that, I would just show you a pony." He casually caught the two knives she threw at him as she blushed at that, before continuing. "I believe the reason I gave Fred and George was initiate indoctrination into the magic of friendship." He quoted himself. "Don't worry. It will all make sense tomorrow. Okay, I take that back. You will understand what I did tomorrow. There is a good chance it won't make any sense for a long while though."

"So, one of your typical schemes of utter stupidity."

"Hey, I will have you know, that to date all my schemes have produced _some_ results. Just some of those results weren't what I wanted."

* * *

Harry's new dorm room wasn't anywhere near as good as his Slytherin one. Aside from the fact that it looked like the dorm of a public school from a poor area, instead of the dorm of a private school for nobility, he had to room with Ronald Weasley. And the rat Scabbard. That seemed to glare at Harry, and liked to sleep on Ron's lower stomach.

Normally he didn't mind sharing a room, but Ron was different. First, he smelled. Apparently wizards in his area hadn't invented the concept of daily showers yet. He also snored loudly, ensuring that Harry's sleep would suffer as a result. The guy also produced an absolute mess everywhere. Finally, he had the delicacy and sensitivity of a bear cavalry drunk on alcohol charging enemy lines, with none of the badassery.

Seriously, who asked someone if they remembered the face of the killer of their parents? Especially when you only met said killer when you were one years old. At least Harry had been able to shut him up with a single magically enhanced glare that had Ron running to the shower, solving both having to talk to the boy, and the problem of smell.

At eleven pm, with his roommate asleep, Harry snuck out of the common-room, using the Marauder's Map to guide him. He used leap magic to travel quickly, and used the map to avoid any patrols as he traveled through the castle. By the time it was mid-night, he had visited all of the common-rooms, and set up a thin, perfectly clear screen over each of the four pictures guarding the common-rooms. These screens would be pretty much invisible, but were obviously magical.

With that task done, he woke up the fat-lady – the name and description of the picture guarding the Gryffindor common-room – and returned to his bed. He spent the rest of the night drawing a map of the passage-ways of Hogwarts. He never once considered mapping out the actual common-rooms. That would have been an invasion of privacy.

* * *

_1991 September 3_

Harry was a tad bit tired from pulling an all-nighter, but he pulled through. After all, the schedule at Hogwarts was pretty lax. He started the day by returning Fred and George their map, and went about his day.

The class schedules were the same as the day before, and once again nothing interesting really happened. At least not until after Herbology was over. As the group of Gryffindors were lead back to their common-room, they found three students waiting outside of the common-room, unable to get in.

The prefect leading the first years huffed at the three "idiots", and declared the official password to the fat-lady. Nothing happened. After five minutes of struggling, the prefect had to admit that he _also_ didn't know the password. Nor did any of the first years. Well Harry did, but he wasn't going to speak up about it.

After an hour of struggling, by which time quite the line was forming, there was nothing to do but for everyone to head to class. McGonnogal was so far unaware of any trouble, and taught their Transfiguration class normally. Those who had succeeded assisted class team mates. By the end of the class, the only ones unable to perform any semblance of a transfiguration were the three idiots who refused any help. There were a few more students who had mostly gotten it though. McGonnagal was pleasantly surprised at the results, telling them that she had never seen a class get the lesson this quickly.

After class, a few of the first years decided to inform McGonnagal about their password problem. McGonnagal instructed them to head off to lunch, while she handled the password problem.

It was in this way that the group of first year Gryffindors and Ravenclaws – who were also having password problems – entered the Great Hall, to find that _no one_ had been able to get into their common-rooms. Well, no one but Fred, George, and Lee Jordan, but they weren't volunteering that information.

Just as they were about to ask Harry what he had done, the four Heads of Houses entered, and started telling their houses the new password. The message traveled openly through the Great Hall, so that soon everyone knew the password to every common-room. It was:

Slytherin – _Hate is a lie, there is only love_

Ravenclaw – _Theory is a lie, there is only experience_

Hufflepuff – _Peace is a lie, there is only passion_

Gryffindor – _Solidarity is a lie, there is only unity_

Chann just stared at him. "Really, this is your big plan?"

"Eh, a line will be added to it every day. You try having to recite a code about love and acceptance every time you want to get into your room without having the lesson stick." Harry defended himself.

"What we" twin A began.

"Want to" was twin B.

"Know is"

"How you"

"Manged to"

"Pull this"

"Off."

"Yeah, it is a brilliant prank, but I'm not sure how we would even start on this. How did you convince the paintings to go along with this?" Lee Jordan finished off.

"Who said anything about talking to paintings?" Harry laughed. "I just used a magic item custom developed by yours truly. Each is keyed to two phrases. Whenever a phrase is said or written, if you hear it or see it through the magic item, you hear or see the other phrase. I set it up so that whenever the paintings set a new password, that would be one of the phrases. The paintings won't realize they aren't hearing the arbitrary passwords that they set."

"But wouldn't the professors have realized something was wrong when they talked to the paintings?" Chann asked.

"From what Sirius told me, they tend to be rather arbitrary. The Heads of Houses probably dismissed anything unusual as the paintings misbehaving. I figure they will figure out what is going on in a week or so though. However, I'm gambling that by then Dumbledore will have taken a liking to the phrases, and keep them anyways." Harry admitted.

"Harrikins"

"Are you sure"

"You aren't"

"A prankster?"

"No. If I was a prankster, I would do something like charming a ton of rocks so that they play the Imperial March whenever Professor Snape walks by. And then placing them in every classroom, but transfiguring them so that they look like part of the wall. So that Professor Snape is constantly followed and preceded by the song wherever he goes. Actually, I would probably make a theme-song for every professor."

"The Imperial March?" Jordan asked.

"We have"

"Never Heard"

"That."

Harry obliged them by swinging his wand, and making the song play quietly. "It is the theme-song of the main villain from one of the most famous Muggle movies of all time." He explained. "He is dressed in all black, marches around in a black cloak, arbitrarily punishes people, and is never happy."

"Well"

"You might"

"not be"

"A prankster."

"But"

"We are."

And with that, the twins quickly rushed out of the dining hall, straight for the common-room to work their magic.

"You would think they would notice you are manipulating them." Chann commented.

"Oh, they probably did. They just don't care." Harry said with a smile. Somehow, they had talked quietly enough for no one to listen in on their prior conversation. "Now that you have finished eating, I think it is time for your after-noon nap with Professor Binns. Ready?"

"Augh, don't remind me. I can't imagine how you managed to stay awake during all of that."

"You know what my teachers have been like until now."

"True." Chan admitted. "Well, at least this time I brought my album. I think me and the girls can stay awake if we just gather up and discuss that during class."

"Did I ever mention how I hate you?"

"Revenge for the pony comment." Chann grinned at him. "Your fault for letting all these pictures be taken of you."

"Half of those were fabricated from scratch by Alice! The other half were heavily modified by her." Harry protested.

"Your fault for convincing her that doing this would cause chaos around you. You know how she just loves to cause chaos."

"Women. Can't live with them, life would be so much simpler without them." Harry muttered.

"Hey, what have I ever done to you?" Chann protested.

"Well, there is the album distribution. Trying to stab me with knives. Blasting me with hexes and jinxes. Punching and kicking me. Throwing a table at me." Harry started counting down on his fingers.

"Hey, I make your life exciting. Now lets get to class so the professor can remind you why you need more excitement in your life." She said as she got up, and started to drag him to class, stopping by to grab Hermione and Neville.

* * *

_1991 September 3_

While Harry was being a boy over at Hogwarts, back in Hungary a pair of disasters was striking the land. Rain and powerful winds buffeted a small village, while a war of supernatural powers was waged.

A pack of wolves ran through the streets, and were blasted apart by a barrage of spells.

A row of houses were transformed into automatons, crushing the residents in the process. Lightning struck from the sky, blasting apart the golems.

A dragon of pure fire, hot enough to burn actual fire, rose up from the ground, vaporizing the rain with its mere presence. The rain intensified in response, causing the fire to spread out further to block it out. Suddenly a tornado appeared from within the fire dragon, blasting outwards, blowing the dragon away, and burning a path of destruction that left nothing in its wake. Houses were destroyed, and deep tunnels were carved into the ground.

Amongst all this carnage and destruction stood two people. One was a man appearing to be in his late forties. He had gray hair and glowing green eyes. He had a professional looking suit on, but had the face of a beast hunting its prey. The other was a beautiful woman, her appearance far too stunning to be labeled as "human". The rain pattered an invisible barrier around her, but never touched her. She walked with a grace unexpected of humans, and was constantly causing a barrage of magical attacks or defenses with each flick of the wrist.

The old man moved like a beast, dodging spells and creatures attacking him on pure instinct, while he commanded the skies to rain down lighting, and the air to buffet his foe and her creations. With a word, he commanded an army of undead to rise out of the ground, and attack a golem that was headed this way. Half the group of two dozen warriors were destroyed in taking down the 10 meter tall golem, but the old man didn't care.

He continued moving like a beast hunting its prey, joy evident on his face as he charged at the woman. With the flick of a wrist she caused a wall to rise out of the ground, blocking his approach. However, as a result she missed the pack of wolves that formed behind the wall until they rounded it on either side, trapping her in the middle of a pincer attack.

Spells of varying colors burst out of her fingers as she pointed them at either side, stopping the hearts of some of the wolves, and blowing others up. A few of the wolves were turned into snakes that attacked their allies, only to be overwhelmed by yet more of their allies. As she slowed down the advance, she clapped her hands and created a wall of fire on either side, before waving her arms, causing the waves to advance on the wolves, burning them away.

As she did this, a barrage of lighting stuck the wall she was standing next to, blowing it away, and blasting her back in the process. As she tried to get back up, powerful winds struck at her, knocking her back to the ground. Normally the winds would have been powerful enough to crush her, however her magic was so powerful that the winds lost their intensity simply by coming near her.

Seeing her hunter rushing her, the woman turned into a dragon, only for him to take the form of a giant wolf, and take a bite into her jugular. The dragon roared in pain as its life blood started to be drained away. Suddenly the woman rose out of the back of the dragon, as if it were nothing more than merely skin that she was shedding away.

The body started crumpling away, before bursting into a powerful flame that assaulted the wolf. The creature merely laughed, and proceeded to _eat_ the fire that was assaulting it, swallowing the attack as if it were just a meal.

As the woman watched this, she muttered a simply chant, releasing her magic to its full, and blasting away the winds buffeting her. Then, with a near-silent 'pop' sound, she disappeared.

The wolf growled. It still had her scent, and could track her. If it took to the skies, and rode the winds, it could follow her, and hunt her down. However, after a moment it relented, turning back into the man it once was. The man shed his ferocious look, and took on the face of a gentleman, a respectable noble.

His prey had abandoned the battlefield, run from her greatest foe. In doing so, especially with the wounds he had given her, she had abandoned much of herself. She was no longer a worthy prey, no longer an entertainment worth considering. Besides, she had been headed north. Perhaps she would encounter his "son", and together, they might turn into a worthy prey once again.

* * *

_I have seen a number of fanfics were Dumbledore complained about Harry going to Slytherin, but none where he basically used his powers to go "fuck this" and just put the golden-boy in Gryffindor. However, as far as I can tell, there is nothing in canon saying he can't do that. And if there is, well, I'm slightly changing the rules of this universe so that he can._

_Also, we have the introduction of our first Divine being. No she wont' be the one that Harry kills to become a Campione. He is a bit too young to become a Campione yet. However, she will be introduced to Harry at some point. I'm not sure when. I have plans for them interacting during winter-break, but not sure if I will have Harry meeting her before then._

_Also, I'm sorry to disappoint everyone that a horde of Death Eaters didn't descend on Sasha. While I did have the encounter planned out – 20 of them interrupting Sasha's meal, with him never stopping eating or even getting up from his chair as he killed five of them makes the others run away – I have to agree with bakapervert that them attacking someone because an eleven year old asked them to was unrealistic. That, and if they were wiped out now, they wouldn't be around as cannon-fodder to establish Harry's bad-assery when he slaughters them._

_Also, once I get through the first week of school, I figure I can start going a lot faster than the current one-to-two-days an update. Since I won't have half a dozen new things Harry experiences everyday to describe._

_Also, the four house codes are a work in progress. Here is what I have so far (yes, they are bad), any modifications/improvements/complete rewrites are welcome suggestions:_

_Slytherin:_

_Hate is a lie, there is only love.  
__Through love, I gain friends.  
__Through friends, I gain allies.  
__Through allies, I gain influence.  
__Through influence, my chains are broken.  
__Magic shall set me free_

_Ravenclaw:_

_Theory is a lie, there is only experience.  
Through experience, I gain respect.  
Through respect, I gain friends.  
Through friends, I gain knowledge.  
Through knowledge, my chains are broken.  
Magic shall set me free._

_Hufflepuff:_

_Peace is a lie, there is only passion.  
Through passion, I gain love.  
Through love, I gain success.  
Through success, I gain happiness.  
Through happiness, society's chains are broken.  
Magic shall set us free._

_Gryffindor:_

_Solidarity is a lie, there is only unity.  
Through unity, I gain help.  
Through help, I gain courage.  
Through courage, I gain victory.  
Through victory, society's chains are broken.  
Magic shall set us free._

_Sith Code:_

_____Peace is a lie, there is only passion.  
__Through passion, I gain strength.  
__Through strength, I gain power.  
__Through power, I gain victory.  
__Through victory, my chains are broken.  
__The Force shall free me._


End file.
